The Quotes canon

Sourced and curated.

Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Memories warm you up from the inside but they also tear you apart. — Haruki Murakami · 2002Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. — Haruki Murakami · 2002If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking. — Haruki Murakami · 1987No matter how honestly you open up to someone, there are still some things you can’t reveal. — Haruki Murakami · 2013Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness? — Haruki Murakami · 1999If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets. — Haruki Murakami · 2002
What we call "I" is just a swinging door which moves when we inhale and when we exhale. — Shunryu Suzuki · 1970A mind full of preconceived ideas, subjective intentions, or habits is not open to things as they are. — Shunryu Suzuki · 1970The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities. — Shunryu Suzuki · 1970In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few. — Shunryu Suzuki · 1970
Akio Morita2 quotes
We believe if you have a family you can't eliminate certain members of that family because profits are down. — Akio Morita · 1988A company will get nowhere if all of the thinking is left to management. — Akio Morita · 1986
The enemy has begun to employ a new and most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is indeed incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilization. Such being the case, how are we to save the millions of our subjects, or to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors?... It is according to the dictate of time and fate that we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unavoidable and suffering what is insufferable. — Emperor Hirohito · 1945The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage. — Emperor Hirohito · 1945
One loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them. — Masanobu Fukuoka · 1975The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings. — Masanobu Fukuoka · 1975
Matsuo Basho2 quotes
The old pond- A frog leaps in, And a splash. — Matsuo Basho · 1686The months and days are the travelers of eternity. The years that come and go are also voyagers... I too for years past have been stirred by the sight of a solitary cloud drifting with the wind to ceaseless thoughts of roaming. — Matsuo Basho · 1694
Singlemindedness is all-powerful. — Yamamoto Tsunetomo · 1716If a warrior is not unattached to life and death, he will be of no use whatsoever. — Yamamoto Tsunetomo · 1716
To be an artist means never to avert one's eyes. — Akira Kurosawa
Asai Ryoi1 quote
Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maples, singing songs, drinking water and diverting ourselves in just floating, floating; caring not a whit for the poverty staring us in the face, refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current: this is what we call ukiyo. — Asai Ryoi · 1661
Dogen1 quote
The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass. — Dogen · 1253
Though I grieve, there is no help; Vainly I long to see her. Men tell me that my wife is In the mountains of Hagai- Thither I go, Toiling along the stony path; But it avails me not, For of my wife, as she lived in this world, I find not the faintest shadow. — Kakinomoto no Hitomaro · 759
Ceaselessly the river flows, and yet the water is never the same, while in the still pools the shifting foam gathers and is gone, never staying for a moment. Even so is man and his habitation. — Kamo no Chomei · 1212
The flowers withered, Their color faded away, While meaninglessly I spent my days in the world And the long rains were falling. — Ono no Komachi · 914
There is nothing in the whole world so painful as feeling that one is not liked. It always seems to me that people who hate me must be suffering from some strange form of lunacy. — Sei Shonagon · 1002
It is a terrible shame for me-I came back, still alive, without having won the war. — Shoichi Yokoi · 1997
If you hire only those people whom you understand, the company will never get better people than you are. — Soichiro Honda · 1982
Money is not for saving. — Yayoi Kusama · 1999
Yoko Ono1 quote
Don't get rid of negative emotion, but just use it... Like the salt in your food. — Yoko Ono · 2016
The pleasantest of all diversions is to sit alone under the lamp, a book spread out before you, and to make friends with people of a distant past you have never known. — Yoshida Kenko · 1332