“A person who feels nothing at the death of those close to him is no different than a butcher.”
Jiraiya Quotes
2 quotes from Naruto, each with commentary on what it means and why it stuck.
The least gifted of the three legendary ninja, which is why his definitions of the job are worth more than anyone else's. Carries both the comic relief and the series' ethical floor.
“You're wrong, that's not what makes a shinobi. You never did get it. A real ninja is one who endures no matter what gets thrown at him.”
Aimed at a former teammate who defined strength as technique collected and bodies discarded, by a man who was told he had no talent and kept going anyway. The definition is autobiographical, which is why it is stated as a correction rather than a maxim: forty years of being the least gifted of the three legendary ninja gives him standing to say what the job actually requires.
Lines credited to Jiraiya that we have checked
Not everything circulating under this name was said by them, and some of the least likely ones were. Each verdict links to the evidence.
Read Jiraiya's story from the start
Every line above is a fragment. The manga is where the fragments come from, and the print edition is the one this site checks its quotes against.
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This is the ethical floor the series builds its ninja profession on top of. Shinobi are trained to treat feeling as a liability, which the story keeps demonstrating and keeps punishing, so somebody senior has to state the limit out loud or the world stops being coherent. The teacher who spends most of his screen time being a nuisance is the one given the job, and it is not an accident that the joke and the floor share a character.