Quotes by Murasaki Shikibu

“ To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman. No matter how amorous or passionate you may be, as long as you are straightforward and refrai...”

“The bond between husband and wife is a strong one. Suppose the man had hunted her out and brought her back. The memory of her acts would still be there, and inevitably, sooner or later, it would be...”

“The number of those who have nothing to recommend them and of those in whom nothing but good can be found is probably equal”

“You that in far-off countries of the sky can dwell secure, look back upon me here; for I am weary of this frail world's decay.”

“Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.”

“Let us be sure that the lady of our choice possesses certain tangible qualities that we admire; and if in other ways she falls short of our ideal, we must be patient and call to mind those qualitie...”

“When my brother,, was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficu...”

“i wish you could understand me, but of course it is not the way of this world that we are ever completely understood.”

“You are here to remind me of someone I long for, and what is it you long for yourself? We must have been together in an earlier life, you and I.”

“The wood-carver can fashion whatever he will. Yet his products are but toys of the moment, to be glanced at in jest, not fashioned according to any precept or law. When times change, the carver too...”

“Well, we never expected this!" they all say. "No one liked her. They all said she was pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disd...”

“No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly...and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.”

“Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow.”

“There is much to be said for cherry blossoms, but they seem so flighty. They are so quick to run off and leave you. And then just when your regrets are the strongest the wisteria comes into bloom, ...”

“Did not we vow that we would neither of us be either before or after the other even in travelling the last journey of life? And can you find it in your heart to leave me now?”

“It is so rare to find someone of true understanding; for the most part they judge purely by their own standards and ignore everyone else. So all they see of me is a faade. There are times when I am...”

“People make a great deal of the flowers of spring and the leaves of autumn, but for me a night like this, with a clear moon shining on snow, is the best -- and there is not a trace of color in it. ...”

“To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman. No matter how amorous or passionate you may be, as long as you are straightforward and refrain...”

“When my brother,…, was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too diffic...”

“Seeing the water birds on the lake increase in number day by day, I thought to myself how nice it would be if it snowed before we got back to the Palace—the garden would look so beautiful; and then...”