Murasaki Shikibu Quotes

Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.

It is useless to talk with those who do not understand one and troublesome to talk with those who criticize from a feeling of superiority. Especially one-sided persons are troublesome. Few are accomplished in many arts and most cling narrowly to their own opinion.

There are as many sorts of women as there are women.

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.

Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.

One ought not to be unkind to a woman merely on account of her plainness, any more than one had a right to take liberties with her merely because she was handsome

Autumn is no time to lie alone

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 will change his style and make new trifles to hit the fancy of the passing day. But there is another kind of artist, who sets more soberly about his work, striving to give real beauty to the things which men actually use and to give to them the shape which tradition has ordained. This maker of real things must not for a moment be confused with the maker of idle toys.