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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

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Yoshida Kenko
Life
Lonely
Wine
Jewelled
Unless
Excels
Though
Likened
May
Contain
Everything
Lover
Men
Cups
Love
Lovers

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There is nothing finer than to be alone with nothing to distract you.
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Leave undone whatever you hesitate to do.
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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.
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Ambition never comes to an end.
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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.
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Life's most precious gift is uncertainty.
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What a strange, demented feeling it gives me when I realize I have spent whole days before this ink stone, with nothing better to do, jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts have entered my head.
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The truth is at the beginning of anything and its end are alike touching.
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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.
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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.
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Even members of the nobility, let alone persons of no consequence, would do well not to have children.
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The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The true criminal must be defined as a man who commits a crime though he is as decently fed and clothed as others.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Blossoms are scattered by the wind and the wind cares nothing but the blossoms of the heart no wind can touch.
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