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

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

The pleasantest of all diversions is to sit alone under the lamp, a book spread out before you, and to make friends with people of a distant past you have never known.

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.

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.

Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring - these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with flowers are worthier of our admiration.