"They flock together like ants, hurry east and west, run north and south. Some are mighty, some humble. Some are aged, some young. They have places to go, houses to return to. At night they sleep, in the morning get up. But what does all this activity mean ? There is no ending to their greed for long life, their grasping for for profit."

“The truth is at the beginning of anything and its end are alike touching.”

“Bishop Köyu said , 'It is only a person of poor understanding who wishes to arrange things in complete sets. It is incompleteness that is desirable.' In everything regularity is bad. To leave a thing unfinished gives interest, and makes for lengthened life. They say that even in building the palace an unfinished place is always left. In the writings of the ancients, inner and outer , there are many missing chapters and parts.”

“It is popular superstitions uncritically, but to dismiss them as being "most improbable" serves no purpose. In general, the best course is to treat such matters as if they were true, neither giving one's unqualified belief nor doubting or mocking them.”

“Ambition never comes to an end.”

“To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations — such is a pleasure beyond compare.”

“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.”