Murasaki Shikibu

Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.

Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.

A night of endless dreams, inconsequent and wild, is this my life; none more worth telling than the rest.

Though the body moves, the soul may stay behind.

How strange a thing is the heart of man!

People who do not get into scrapes are a great deal less interesting than those who do.

Old age is a disease from which there is no recovery but the old nun's recent attack had certainly been brought on chiefly by the fatigue of so much travelling.

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.

I wish I could be more like the moon—aloof and untroubled.

Men are strange creatures—they pretend to be serious but are ruled by their desires.

The sound of the wind is the only thing that listens to my sorrow.

I write because if I didn’t, my heart would burst.

The world is a floating dream—why cling to it?

Foolish indeed are those who trust to fortune.

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

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, disdainful, cantankerous, and scornful. But when you meet her, she is strangely meek, a completely different person altogether!' How embarrassing!

Intimacy between stepchildren and stepparents is indeed proverbially difficult.

It is very easy to criticize others but far more difficult to put one's own principles into practice, and it is when one forgets this truth, lauds oneself to the skies, treats everyone else as worthless, and generally despises others, that one's own character is clearly revealed.