Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become a study for archaeologists...but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.

Lafcadio Hearn

No man can possibly know what life means, what the world means, until he has a child and loves it. And then the whole universe changes and nothing will ever again seem exactly as it seemed before.

Lafcadio Hearn

mean father children

All good work is done the way ants do things: Little by little.

Lafcadio Hearn

done work littles

In order to comprehend the beauty of a Japanese garden, it is necessary to understand - or at least to learn to understand - the beauty of stone.

Lafcadio Hearn

learning garden beauty

But every great scripture, whether Hebrew, Indian, Persian, or Chinese, apart from its religious value will be found to have some rare and special beauty of its own; and in this respect the original Bible stands very high as a monument of sublime poetry and of artistic prose.

Lafcadio Hearn

chinese sublime religious

The highest duty of the man is not to his father, but to his wife; and for the sake of that woman he abandons all other earthly ties, should any of these happen to interfere with that relation.

Lafcadio Hearn

ties men father

The fact, however, to which I want to call attention is that the master of Judo never relies upon his own strength. He scarcely uses his own strength in the greatest emergency. Then what does he use? Simply the strength of his antagonist. The force of the enemy is the only means by which that enemy is overcome.

Lafcadio Hearn

rely-upon mean enemy

There are two methods for the literary study of any book - the first being the study of its thought and emotion; the second only that of its workmanship. A student of literature should study some of the Bible from both points of view.

Lafcadio Hearn

views two book

The Shadow-maker shapes forever.

Lafcadio Hearn

shadow shapes forever

How sweet Japanese woman is! All the possibilities of the race for goodness seem to be concentrated in her.

Lafcadio Hearn

goodness race sweet

The time of illusion, then, is the beautiful moment of passion; it represents the artistic zone in which the poet or romance writer ought to be free to do the very best that he can.

Lafcadio Hearn

romance passion beautiful

Broad tolerance in the matter of beliefs is necessarily a part of the new ethics.

Lafcadio Hearn

ethics tolerance matter

But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a greater happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth; that is the happiness of being truly loved.

Lafcadio Hearn

literature earth heaven

One thing is always wrong-always: to cause suffering in others for the purpose of gratifying one's own pleasures; that is everlastingly wrong.

Lafcadio Hearn

purpose principles suffering

A great many things which in times of lesser knowledge we imagined to be superstitious or useless, prove today on examination to have been of immense value to mankind.

Lafcadio Hearn

examination great-day useless

Is woman a religion? Well, perhaps you will have the chance of judging for yourselves if you go to America. There you will find men treating women with just the same respect formerly accorded only to religious dignitaries or to great nobles.

Lafcadio Hearn

religious men america

French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and to lovers, after marriage; consequently there is a great deal in French novels about adultery, about improper relations between the sexes, about many things which the English public would not allow.

Lafcadio Hearn

lovers sex world

Whatever doubts or vexations one has in Japan, it is only necessary to ask one's self: "Well, who are the best people to live with?

Lafcadio Hearn

japan self people

The great principle of Western society is that competition rules here as it rules in everything else. The best man - that is to say, the strongest and cleverest - is likely to get the best woman, in the sense of the most beautiful person.

Lafcadio Hearn

competition beautiful men

At last, in 1611, was made, under the auspices of King James, the famous King James version; and this is the great literary monument of the English language.

Lafcadio Hearn

lasts literature kings

I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry.

Lafcadio Hearn

passion literature fiction