There is nothing we should be quite so grateful for as the last line of the poem that goes, 'When your own heart asks.

It is better not to become acquainted with men about whom you have formerly had doubts. No matter what you do, they will be people by whom you will be tripped up or taken in.

An affected laugh shows lack of self-respect in a man and lewdness in a woman. It is carelessness to go about with one's hands inside the slits in the sides of his hakama.

It is bad when one thing becomes two. One should not look for anything else in the Way of the Samurai. If one understands things in this manner, he should be able to hear about all Ways and be more and more in accord with his own.

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.

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.

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.