Quotes by Murasaki Shikibu

About Murasaki Shikibu:

Murasaki Shikibu is best known as the author of The Tale of Genji, written in Japanese between about 1000 and 1012. Murasaki Shikibu is a nickname; her real name is unknown, but she may have been Fujiwara Takako, who was mentioned in a 1007 court diary as an imperial lady-in-waiting.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

It is so rare to find someone of true understanding; for the most part they judge purely by their own standards and ignore everyone else. So all they see of me is a façade. There are times when I am forced to sit with them and on such occasions I si...

Murasaki Shikibu

Well, we never expected this!" they all say. "No one liked her. They all said she was pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous, and scornful. But when you meet...

Murasaki Shikibu

En asuntos de arte la modestia no es una virtud.

Murasaki Shikibu

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 th...

Murasaki Shikibu

Autumn is no time to lie alone

Murasaki Shikibu

Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow.

Murasaki Shikibu

Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams.

Murasaki Shikibu

Did not we vow that we would neither of us be either before or after the other even in travelling the last journey of life? And can you find it in your heart to leave me now?

Murasaki Shikibu

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.

Murasaki Shikibu

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.

Murasaki Shikibu

When my brother,…, was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to grasp and memorize. Father a most learned ma...

Murasaki Shikibu

The number of those who have nothing to recommend them and of those in whom nothing but good can be found is probably equal

Murasaki Shikibu

Let us be sure that the lady of our choice possesses certain tangible qualities that we admire; and if in other ways she falls short of our ideal, we must be patient and call to mind those qualities that first induced us to begin our courting.

Murasaki Shikibu

Author Bio

  • NameMurasaki Shikibu
  • DescriptionJapanese novelist, poet during the Heian period. best known as the author of The Tale of Genji
  • AliasesLady Murasaki
  • CountryJapan
  • ProfessionLady-in-waiting; Novelist; Poet; Writer
  • WorksMurasaki; Kiritsubo Emperor; Hikaru Genji