Yoshida Kenko Quotes

#1. All things of this phenomenal world are mere illusion. They are worth neither discussing nor desiring.

Yoshida Kenko

#2. 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.

Yoshida Kenko

#3. If you rely neither on yourself nor on others, you will rejoice when things go well, and not be aggrieved when they don't.

Yoshida Kenko

#4. It harms a man more to wound his heart than to hurt his body.

Yoshida Kenko

#5. It's the ephemeral nature of things that makes them wonderful.

Yoshida Kenko

#6. 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.

Yoshida Kenko

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

Yoshida Kenko

#8. It is foolish to be in thrall to fame and fortune, engaged in painful striving all your life with never a moment of peace and tranquillity.

Yoshida Kenko

#9. The hour of death waits for no order. Death does not even come from the front. It is ever pressing on from behind. All men know of death, but they do not expect it of a sudden, and it comes upon them unawares. So, though the dry flats extend far out, soon the tide comes and floods the beach.

Yoshida Kenko

#10. 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.

Yoshida Kenko

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

Yoshida Kenko

#12. It is a fine thing when a man who thoroughly understands a subject is unwilling to open his mouth.

Yoshida Kenko

#13. Life's most precious gift is uncertainty.

Yoshida Kenko

#14. 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.

Yoshida Kenko

#15. I recall the months and years I spent as the intimate of someone whose affections have now faded like cherry blossoms scattering even before a wind blew.

Yoshida Kenko

#16. Why should it be so difficult to carry something out right now when you think of it, to seize the instant?

Yoshida Kenko

#17. To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations - such is pleasure beyond compare.

Yoshida Kenko

#18. 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.

Yoshida Kenko

#19. The true criminal must be defined as a man who commits a crime though he is as decently fed and clothed as others.

Yoshida Kenko

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

Yoshida Kenko

#21. There is a deep contradiction in failing to enjoy life and yet fearing death when faced with it.

Yoshida Kenko

#22. I have relinquished all that ties me to the world, but the one thing that still haunts me is the beauty of the sky

Yoshida Kenko

#23. 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.

Yoshida Kenko

#24. 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.

Yoshida Kenko

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

Yoshida Kenko

#26. If man were never to fade away ... but lingered on forever in the world, how things would lose their power to move us. The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.

Yoshida Kenko

#27. The longer you live, the greater your share of shame.

Yoshida Kenko

#28. On a moonlit night, after a snowfall, or under cherry blossoms, it adds to our pleasure if, while chatting at our ease, we bring forth the wine cups.

Yoshida Kenko

#29. Those who feel the impulse to pursue the path of enlightenment should immediately take the step, and not defer it while they attend to all the other things on their mind.

Yoshida Kenko

#30. If you imagine that once you have accomplished your ambitions you will have time to turn to the Way, you will discover that your ambitions never come to an end.

Yoshida Kenko

#31. What a strange demented feeling it gives me when I realize that I have spent whole days before this inkstone, with nothing better to do, jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts have entered my head.

Yoshida Kenko

#32. If you follow the ways of the world, your heart will be drawn to its sensual defilements and easily led astray; if you go among people, your words will be guided by others' responses rather than come from the heart.

Yoshida Kenko

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

Yoshida Kenko

#34. Looking back on months and years of intimacy, to feel that your friend, while you still remember the moving words you exchanged, is yet growing distant and living in a world apart - all this is sadder far than partings brought by death.

Yoshida Kenko

#35. Knowledge leads to deception; talent and ability only serve to increase earthly desires.

Yoshida Kenko