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.

There is nothing finer than to be alone with nothing to distract you.

... For such as truly love the world, a thousand years would fade like the dream of one night.

Though a man excels in everything, unless he has been a lover his life is lonely, and he may be likened to a jewelled cup which can contain no wine.

In everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting, and gives one the feeling that there is room for growth. Someone once told me, "Even when building the imperial palace, they always leave one place unfinished." In both Buddhist and Confucian writings of the philosophers of former times, there are also many missing chapters.

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

Life's most precious gift is uncertainty.