If the OP is an actual quote from a samurai, then it stands to reason that his life would encompass conflict as he would have navigated this life at the end of a sword, wholely devoting himself to serving his lord with honour and dying a noble death by merit of his way - the soylent know nothing of this kind of life or where such advice would have context.

I remember Miyamoto Musashi once writing something along the lines of it being wrong to think your opponents as strong, but he is also noted with saying "A thousand days of training to develop, ten thousand days of training to polish.", and that one should never be lazy and to always be in the act of training.

If you're not training every single day and even more so putting it into practice, this advice will never find application in anything but distortion.