"To make a fortune some assistance from fate is essential. Ability alone is insufficient."

Ihara Saikaku Literature See all quotes by Ihara Saikaku →

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“Ancient simplicity is gone...the people of today are satisfied with nothing but finery.”

“For each of the four hundred and four bodily ailments celebrated physicians have produced infallible remedies, but the malady which brings the greatest distress to mankind — to even the wisest and cleverest of us — is the plague of poverty.”

“When you send a clerk on business to a distant province, a man of rigid morals is not your best choice.”

“If we live by subhuman means we might as well never have had the good fortune to be born human.”

“To think twice in every matter and follow the lead of others is no way to make money.”

“Though mothers and fathers give us life, it is money alone which preserves it.”

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