Yoshida Kenkō

"In all things I yearn for the past. Modern fashions seem to keep on growing more and more debased. I find that even among the splendid pieces of furniture built by our master cabinetmakers, those in t…"

"If man were never to fade away like the dews of Adashino never to vanish like the smoke over Toribeyama, but lingered on forever in the world, how things would lose their power to move us! The most pr…"

"The truly enlightened man has no learning, no virtue, no accomplishments, no fame."

"There are innumerable instances of things which attach themselves to something else, then waste and destroy it. The body has lice; a house has mice; a country has robbers; inferior men have riches; su…"

"A bystander... remarked, '...One day of life is weightier than ten thousand pieces of gold. ...It is not because they do not fear death, but because they forget the nearness of death that men do not r…"

"One would like to leave behind a glorious reputation for surpassing wisdom and character, but careful reflection will show that what we mean by love of a glorious reputation is delight in the approbat…"

"To while away the idle hours, seated the livelong day before the inkslab, by jotting down without order or purpose whatever trifling thoughts pass through my mind, truely this is a queer and crazy thi…"

"Why is it so hard to do a thing Now, at the moment when one thinks of it."