Murasaki Shikibu — "A night of endless dreams, inconsequent and wild, is this my life; none more wor…"

"Foolish indeed are those who trust to fortune."

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

"Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams."

"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 worthle…"

"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."