 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.
– Yoshida Kenko (1284 1350) |
Category Archives: Yoshida Kenko
Yoshida Kenko – To while away the idle hours
| To while away the idle hours, seated the livelong day before the ink slab, by jotting down without order or purpose whatever trifling thoughts pass through my mind, truly this is a queer and crazy thing to do!
– Yoshida Kenko (1284 1350) |
Yoshida Kenko – The hour of death waits for no order
| 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 (1284 1350) |
Yoshida Kenko – One should write not unskillfully
| 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 (1284 1350) |
Yoshida Kenko – It is a great error to be superior
| 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.
– Yoshida Kenko (1284 1350) |
