Yoshida Kenkō

Quotes

• “{{lang|ja|つれ〲なるまゝに、日ぐらし硯に向ひて、心に移り行くよしなしごとを、そこはかとなく書きつくれば、怪しうこそ物狂ほしけれ。}}”
• “One should write not unskilfully 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 pressed upon him.”
• “If man were never to fade away like the dews of Adashino never to vanish like the smoke over Toribeyama, 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. Consider living creatures — none lives so long a man. The May fly waits not for the evening, the summer cicada knows neither spring nor autumn. What a wonderfully unhurried feeling it is to live even even a single year in perfect serenity.”
• “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.”
• “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.”
• “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.”

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born

c. 1283, Japan

Died

1350 (aged 66–67), Japan

Occupation

Buddhist monk , writer, artist

Nationality

Japanese

Period

Muromachi period , Kamakura period

Notable works

Essays in Idleness

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Image

Yoshida Kenko.jpg

via Wikidata · CC0