If you spend too much time trying to find out what is good or bad about someone else, you'll forget your own soul and end up exhausted and defeated by the energy you have wasted in judging others.

People are never satisfied. If they have a little, they want more. If they have a lot, they want still more. Once they have more, they wish they could be happy with little, but are incapable of making the slightest effort in that direction.

Do not ask yourself if your love is big enough, because love is neither big nor small, it is simply love.

Never make a fuss-it might attract the attention of an enemy tribe.

The ship is safest when it is in port, but that’s not what ships were built for.

Tea ceremony is a way of worshipping the beautiful and the simple. All one's efforts are concentrated on trying to achieve perfection through the imperfect gestures of daily life. Its beauty consists in the respect with which it is performed. If a mere cup of tea can bring us closer to God, we should watch out for all the other dozens of opportunities that each ordinary day offers us.

We could go back to the time when we first met: a man in emotional tatters over someone who had left him, and a woman madly in love with her neighbor. I could repeat what I said to you once: 'I'm going to fight to the bitter end.' Well, I fought and I lost, and now I'll just have to lick my wounds and leave.