Yoshida Kenko Quotes
If man were never to fade away ... but lingered on forever in the world, how things would lose their power to move us. The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.
It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.
On a moonlit night, after a snowfall, or under cherry blossoms, it adds to our pleasure if, while chatting at our ease, we bring forth the wine cups.
... For such as truly love the world, a thousand years would fade like the dream of one night.
Blossoms are scattered by the wind and the wind cares nothing but the blossoms of the heart no wind can touch.
In everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth
You should never put the new antlers of a deer to your nose and smell them. They have little insects that crawl into the nose and devour the brain.
If you imagine that once you have accomplished your ambitions you will have time to turn to the Way, you will discover that your ambitions never come to an end.
One should write not unskillfully in the running hand, be able to sing in a pleasing voice and keep good time to music; and, lastly, a man should not refuse a little wine when it is pressed upon him.
A certain recluse, I know not who, once said that no bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving was the sky.
If life were eternal, all interest and anticipation would vanish. It is uncertainty which lends it fascination.
If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.
Though a man excels in everything, unless he has been a lover his life is lonely, and he may be likened to a jewelled cup which can contain no wine.
The pleasantest of all diversions is to sit alone under the lamp, a book spread out before you, and to make friends with people of a distant past you have never known.
Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.
The true criminal must be defined as a man who commits a crime though he is as decently fed and clothed as others.