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1 " 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 Kenkō , Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkō
2 " 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. "
3 " 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. "
4 " 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 Kenkō , A Cup of Sake Beneath the Cherry Trees
5 " What happiness to sit in intimate conversation with someone of like mind, warmed by candid discussion of the amusing and fleeting ways of this world ... but such a friend is hard to find, and instead you sit there doing your best to fit in with whatever the other is saying, feeling deeply alone. "
― Yoshida Kenkō
6 " What kind of man will feel depressed at being idle? There is nothing finer than to be alone with nothing to distract him.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 your heart. There is nothing firm or stable in a life spent between larking about together and quarreling exuberant one moment, aggrieved and resentful the next. You are forever pondering pros and cons, endlessly absorbed in questions of gain and loss. And on top of delusion comes drunkenness, and in that drunkenness you dream. "
7 " How mutable the flower of the human heart, a fluttering blossom gone before the breeze’s touch – so we recall the bygone years when the heart of another was our close companion, each dear word that stirred us then still unforgotten; and yet, it is the way of things that the beloved should move into worlds beyond our own, a parting far sadder than from the dead. "
8 " Tag für Tag, Monat für Monat verstreicht so, und das Dasein vergeht ungenutzt, weil wir es nicht verstanden. "
9 " 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. "
10 " There is nothing finer than to be alone with nothing to distract you. "
11 " It is a great error to be superior to others....It is such pride as this that makes a man appear a fool, makes him abused by others, and invites disaster. A man who is truly versed in any art will of his own accord be clearly aware of his own deficiency; and therefore, his ambition being never satisfied, he ends by never being proud. "
12 " 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. "
13 " 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. "
14 " 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. "
15 " A certain man who was learning archery faced the target with two arrows in his hand. But his instructor said, ' A beginner ought never to have a second arrow; for as long as he relies upon the other, he will be careless with his first one. At each shot he ought to think that he is bound to settle it with this particular shaft at any cost.' Doubtless he would not intentionally act foolishly before his instructor with one arrow, when he has but a couple. But, though he may not himself realize that he is being careless, his teacher knows it. You should bear this advice in mind on every occasion. (In the same way) he who follows the path of learning thinks confidently in the evening that the morning is coming, and in the morning that the evening is coming, and that he will then have plenty of time to study more carefully ; less likely still is he to recognize the waste of a single moment. How hard indeed is it to do a thing at once-now, the instant that you think of it ! "
16 " Duduk sendirian dibawah sinar lampu,Buku terkembang di depan,Bercakap-cakap secara akrab dengan manusia dari generasi yang tak tampak.Sungguh suatu kenikmatan yang tak bertara "
17 " Only a boring man will always want things to match; real quality lies in irregularity―another excellent remark. "
18 " 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. "
19 " 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. "
20 " There is a deep contradiction in failing to enjoy life and yet fearing death when faced with it. "
