Yoshida Kenkō quotes

Yoshida Kenkō was a Japanese author, Buddhist monk, and essayist, best known for his classic work "Essays in Idleness." His writings offer deep insights into medieval Japanese culture, aesthetics, and the impermanence of life. He is celebrated as one of the most important figures in Japanese literature and thought. Here are 34 of his quotes:

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 Kenkō

Leave undone whatever you hesitate to do.

Yoshida Kenkō

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 Kenkō

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 Kenkō

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 Kenkō

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 Kenkō

Ambition never comes to an end.

Yoshida Kenkō

What a foolish thing it is to be governed by a desire for fame and profit and to fret away one's whole life without a moment of peace. Great wealth is no guarantee of security. Wealth, in fact, tends to attract calamities and disaster.

Yoshida Kenkō

They flock together like ants, hurry east and west, run north and south. Some are mighty, some humble. Some are aged, some young. They have places to go, houses to return to. At night they sleep, in the morning get up. But what does all this activity mean? There is no ending to their greed for long life, their grasping for for profit.

Yoshida Kenkō

Action and principle are fundamentally the same. If the outstanding appearances do not offend, the inward reality is certain to mature. We should not insist on our unbelief, but honour and respect these things.

Yoshida Kenkō

It is excellent for a man to be simple in his tastes, to avoid extravagance, to own no possessions, to entertain no craving for worldly success.

Yoshida Kenkō

Even a false imitation of wisdom must be reckoned as wisdom.

Yoshida Kenkō

There are innumerable instances of things which attach themselves to something else, then waste and destroy it. The body has lice; a house has mice; a country has robbers; inferior men have riches; superior men have benevolence and righteousness; priests have the Buddhist law.

Yoshida Kenkō

Why is it so hard to do a thing Now, at the moment when one thinks of it.

Yoshida Kenkō

To while away the idle hours, seated the livelong day before the inkslab, by jotting down without order or purpose whatever trifling thoughts pass through my mind, truely this is a queer and crazy thing to do!

Yoshida Kenkō

The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty.

Yoshida Kenkō

The truly enlightened man has no learning, no virtue, no accomplishments, no fame.

Yoshida Kenkō

Things which seem in poor taste: too many personal effects cluttering up the place where one is sitting; too many brushes in an ink-box; too many Buddhas in a family temple; too many stones and plants in a garden; too many children in a house; too many words on meeting someone; too many meritorious deeds recorded in a petition. Things which are not offensive, no matter how numerous: books in a book cart, rubbish in a rubbish heap.

Yoshida Kenkō

Bishop Köyu said (it seems to me very admirably), 'It is only a person of poor understanding who wishes to arrange things in complete sets. It is incompleteness that is desirable.' In everything regularity is bad. To leave a thing unfinished gives interest, and makes for lengthened life. They say that even in building the [imperial] palace an unfinished place is always left. In the writings of the ancients, inner and outer [Buddhist and non-Buddhist], there are many missing chapters and parts.

Yoshida Kenkō

All is unreality. Nothing is worth discussing, worth desiring.

Yoshida Kenkō

There's no escaping it-the world is full of lies. It is safest always to accept what one hears as if it were utterly commonplace and devoid of interest.

Yoshida Kenkō

He is of low understanding who spends a whole life irked by common worldly matters.

Yoshida Kenkō