To know the pathos of things.

This world, I think of it as my own, like the full moon lacking nothing at all.

In this uncertain world, we cannot know what tomorrow brings.

-- Called 'the greatest warrior in Japan' by his enem

If the cuckoo will not sing, I shall make it want to sing.

-- The peasant who became ruler of all Japan

A human life of fifty years, compared to the span beneath heaven, is nothing but a dream, an illusion.

-- The revolutionary warlord who dismantled feudal Japan's medieval order and launched the country toward unification

I would rather betray the world than let the world betray me.

-- The dominant warlord of China's Three Kingdoms era

I am like a wind-blown leaf, with nothing to compare to.

-- Ichiyo Higuchi

美しさと哀しさとは何故これほどに通ひ合うのだろうか。

-- Yasunari Kawabata