Such people do not realize that by alleviating the suffering of those before your eyes, practicing benevolence and living rightly, our good influence will extend far beyond. –Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness, translated by Meredith McKinney…
It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, a book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met. —Yoshida Kenkō, Essays in Idleness, translated by…
Even if you lack all faith, simply to seat yourself before an image, hold a rosary and take up a sutra book is to perform a virtuous act, however perfunctory, even seated on your meditation…
It’s terribly depressing to discover some quite worthless person blithely reciting a poem that you yourself had particularly liked and carefully copied down in a notebook. –Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book, translated by Meredith McKinney
The highest way of living for those who take the tonsure is to aim to lack nothing while owning nothing. —Yoshida Kenkô, Essays in Idleness, translated by Meredith McKinney If you wish to possess everythingYou must…
I love my tiny hut, my lonely dwelling. When I chance to go down into the capital, I am ashamed of my lowly beggar status, but once back here again I pity those who chase…
It is truly impressive to speak only reluctantly about something you thoroughly understand, and not to mention it at all unless asked.—Yoshida Kenkô, Essays in Idleness, translated by Meredith McKinney
[She was] a complicated, intelligent, well-informed woman who was quick, impatient, keenly observant of detail, high-spirited, witty, emulative, sensitive to the charms and beauties of the world and to the pathos of things, yet intolerant…
When people get together they are never silent for a moment. They will always talk. When you listen to what they say, a great deal of it is pointless. There is much harm and little…
Awkward and Embarrassing Things You happen to say something rude about someone, and a child who overhears it repeats your words in front of the person concerned.— Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book, translated by Meredith McKinney…