Light matters should be dealt with seriously. Serious matters should be dealt with lightly.

One should make his decisions within the space of seven breaths.

In the Kamigata area, they have a sort of tiered lunchbox they use for a single day when flower viewing. Upon returning, they throw them away, trampling them underfoot. The end is important in all things.

When someone is giving you his opinion, you should receive it with deep gratitude even though it is worthless. If you don't, he will not tell you the things that he has seen and heard about you again.

Looking comparatively at the good things, you will see that they are not excluded from wisdom, humanity and bravery.

All of man’s work is a bloody business. That fact, today, is considered foolish, affairs are finished cleverly with words alone, and jobs that require effort are avoided. I would like young men to have some understanding of this.

There is not a man who does not get senile by the time he reaches sixty. And when one thinks that he will not be senile, he is already so.