Murasaki Shikibu Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Murasaki Shikibu's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Novelist Murasaki Shikibu's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 31 quotes on this page collected since 973! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
All quotes by Murasaki Shikibu: Art Heart more...
  • Some ... have imagined that by arousing a baseless suspicion in the mind of the beloved we can revive a waning devotion. But this experiment is very dangerous. Those who recommend it are confident that so long as resentment is groundless one need only suffer it in silence and all will soon be well. I have observed however that this is by no means the case.

    Jealousy   Mean   Long  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “Tale of Genji”, p.56, Tuttle Publishing
  • It is indeed in many ways more comfortable to belong to that section of society whose action are not publicly canvassed and discussed

    Way   Action   Sections  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.266, Tuttle Publishing
  • One ought not to be unkind to a woman merely on account of her plainness, any more than one had a right to take liberties with her merely because she was handsome

    Murasaki Shikibu (1935). “Blue trousers. The lady of the boat. The bridge of dreams”
  • farewell' is a monster among words, and never yet sounded kindly in any ear.

    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.311, Tuttle Publishing
  • No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly...and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.

    Art   Effort   Rewards  
    "The Tale of Genji". Book by Murasaki Shikibu, Ch. 17: Eawase (trans. Royall Tyler), 2002.
  • It is in general the unexplored that attracts us.

    Lady Murasaki, Murasaki Shikibu, Arthur Waley (2000). “The Tale of Genji”, p.180, Courier Corporation
  • There is a tendency among men as well as women ... so soon as they have acquired a little knowledge of some kind, to want to display it to the best advantage.

    Men   Want   Littles  
    Lady Murasaki, Murasaki Shikibu, Arthur Waley (2000). “The Tale of Genji”, p.32, Courier Corporation
  • Stepmothers in books usually behave very spitefully towards the children entrusted to them. But he was now learning by his own experience that in real life this does not always happen.

    Family   Children   Real  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.642, Tuttle Publishing
  • Beauty without colour seems somehow to belong to another world.

    World   Crayon   Colour  
    Murasaki Shikibu (1936*). “The tale of Genji: a novel”
  • People who do not get into scrapes are a great deal less interesting than those who do.

    Murasaki Shikibu (1935). “Blue trousers. The lady of the boat. The bridge of dreams”
  • A night of endless dreams, inconsequent and wild, is this my life; none more worth telling than the rest.

    Dream   Night   Endless  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.361, Tuttle Publishing
  • No penance can your hard heart find save such as you long since have taught me to endure

    Heart   Long   Penance  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.506, Tuttle Publishing
  • There are as many sorts of women as there are women.

  • In few people is discretion stronger than the desire to tell a good story.

    Truth   People   Gossip  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.507, Tuttle Publishing
  • The memories of long love gather like drifting snow, poignant as the mandarin ducks who float side by side in sleep.

  • Though the body moves, the soul may stay behind.

    Moving   Soul   Body  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.833, Tuttle Publishing
  • In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything she did offended someone.

    Book   Ambition   Reign  
  • I have a theory of my own about what the art of the novel is, and how it came into being....It happens because the storyteller's own experience...has moved him to an emotion so passionate that he can no longer keep it shut up in his heart.

  • Intimacy between stepchildren and stepparents is indeed proverbially difficult.

    Lady Murasaki, Murasaki Shikibu, Arthur Waley (2000). “The Tale of Genji”, p.40, Courier Corporation
  • Autumn is no time to lie alone

    Lying   Autumn  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “Tale of Genji”, p.207, Tuttle Publishing
  • There is more here than meets the eye.

    Eye   Appearance  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.503, Tuttle Publishing
  • The wood-carver can fashion whatever he will. Yet his products are but toys of the moment, to be glanced at in jest, not fashioned according to any precept or law. When times change, the carver too will change his style and make new trifles to hit the fancy of the passing day. But there is another kind of artist, who sets more soberly about his work, striving to give real beauty to the things which men actually use and to give to them the shape which tradition has ordained. This maker of real things must not for a moment be confused with the maker of idle toys.

    Fashion   Confused   Real  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.61, Tuttle Publishing
  • How strange a thing is the heart of man!

    Heart   Men   Strange  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.251, Tuttle Publishing
  • 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.

    Travel   Recovery   Age  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.1360, Tuttle Publishing
  • You that in far-off countries of the sky can dwell secure, look back upon me here; for I am weary of this frail world's decay.

    Country   Sky   Looks  
    Murasaki Shikibu (1935). “Blue trousers. The lady of the boat. The bridge of dreams”
  • Foolish indeed are those who trust to fortune.

  • How much the more in judging of the human heart should we distrust all fashionable airs and graces, all tricks and smartness, learnt only to please the outward gaze

    Heart   Air   Judging  
    Murasaki Shikibu (2011). “The Tale of Genji”, p.62, Tuttle Publishing
  • Who has told you that the fruit belies the flower? For the fruit you have not tasted, and the flower you know but by report.

    Flower   Fruit   Reports  
    Lady Murasaki, Murasaki Shikibu, Arthur Waley (2000). “The Tale of Genji”, p.9, Courier Corporation
  • Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow.

    Night   Voice   Tears  
    Lady Murasaki, Murasaki Shikibu, Arthur Waley (2000). “The Tale of Genji”, p.7, Courier Corporation
  • Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.

    Dream   Real   Dark  
    Lady Murasaki, Murasaki Shikibu, Arthur Waley (2000). “The Tale of Genji”, p.5, Courier Corporation
Page 1 of 2
  • 1
  • 2
  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 31 quotes from the Novelist Murasaki Shikibu, starting from 973! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!
    Murasaki Shikibu quotes about: Art Heart