15 Quotes by Ihara Saikaku

There is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations.

Though mothers and fathers give us life, it is money alone which preserves it.

If making money is a slow process, losing it is quickly done.

No longer can a young woman feel at ease; for she is ever concerned with the impression that she may be making on others.

Take care! Kingdoms are destroyed by bandits, houses by rats, and widows by suitors.

To think twice in every matter and follow the lead of others is no way to make money.

Harshness is for the good of a boy, soft-heartedness will ruin him.

And why do so many people wilfully exhaust their strength in promiscuous living, when their wives are on hand from bridal night till old age – to be taken when required, like fish from a private pond.

If we live by subhuman means we might as well never have had the good fortune to be born human.