You always go for the ones who don't really want you.

What's in store for me in the direction I don't take?

My witness is the empty sky.

I believe that$$$ as long as there is plenty$$$ poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress.

What a strange demented feeling it gives me when I realize that I have spent whole days before this inkstone$$$ with nothing better to do$$$ jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts have entered my head.

Things that seem too common: too many furnishings where one is sitting; too many brushes around an inkstone; too many Buddhas in a home chapel; too many stones and trees and bushes in a garden courtyard; too many children and grandchildren in a house; too many words used when talking to people; too much praise for oneself in a written petition. Things that don't offend good taste even if numerous: books...

Kinyo no Nii had an elder brother called Abbot Rygaku$$$ who was very hot-tempered. A large hackberry tree grew alongside his hut$$$ so people called him the Hackberry Priest. Offended by this$$$ he cut the tree down. The stump was left$$$ so he was then called the Stump Priest. This made him angrier still$$$ and he dug the stump out$$$ leaving a large hole that filled with water. So then everyone called him the Ditch Priest.

As a rule the tales which get abroad in the world are false. . . . People always exaggerate things. More so$$$ when months and years have passed and the place is distant do they relate any story they please$$$ or even it put down in writing$$$ so that at least it becomes established fact. . . . Anyhow$$$ it is a world that is full of lies$$$ and we shall make no mistake if we make up our minds that what we hear is really not at all strange and unusual but merely exaggerated in the telling.

Scenery is fine — but human nature is finer.

My imagination is a monastery$$$ and I am its monk.