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.

Leave undone whatever you hesitate to do.

The truth is at the beginning of anything and its end are alike touching.

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

A certain recluse, I know not who, once said that no bonds attached him to this life, and the only thing he would regret leaving was the sky.

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.

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.