If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

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

You should never put the new antlers of a deer to your nose and smell them. They have little insects that crawl into the nose and devour the brain.

One should write not unskillfully in the running hand, be able to sing in a pleasing voice and keep good time to music; and, lastly, a man should not refuse a little wine when it is pressed upon him.

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.

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

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