If we lived forever, if the dews of Adashino never vanished, if the crematory smoke on Toribeyama never faded, men would hardly feel the pity of things. The beauty of life is in its impermanence. Man lives the longest of all living things... and even one year lived peacefully seems very long. Yet for such as love the world, a thousand years would fade like the dream of one night.

If life were eternal, all interest and anticipation would vanish. It is uncertainty which lends it fascination.

Leave undone whatever you hesitate to do.

Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.

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.

It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.

Blossoms are scattered by the wind and the wind cares nothing but the blossoms of the heart no wind can touch.