Going together

Wake, butterfly –

It's late, we've miles

To go together.

~ Matsuo Basho

Life is only important, if...

Clearer and cleaner mirror

As you live deeper in the heart,

the mirror gets clearer and cleaner.

~ Rumi

I have nothing to teach

Searching for words,

Hunting for phrases,

When will it end?

Esteeming knowledge

And gathering information

Only maddens the spirit.

Just entrust yourself

To your own nature,

Empty and illuminating

Beyond this,

I have nothing to teach.

~ Bankei Yotaku

Being dew

Like vanishing dew,

a passing apparition

or sudden flash

of lightning – already gone –

thus should one regard one's self.

~ Ikkyu

The woman who walks alone

The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd.
The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.

~ Albert Einstein

Napoleon to Josephine

Spring 1797

To Josephine,

I love you no longer; on the contrary, I detest you. you are a wretch, truly perverse, truly stupid, a real Cinderella. You never write to me at all, you do not love your husband; you know the pleasure that your letters give him yet you cannot even manage to write him half a dozen lines, dashed off in a moment! What then do you do all day, Madame? What business is so vital that it robs you of the time to write to your faithful lover? What attachment can be stifling and pushing aside the love, the tender and constant love which you promised him? Who can this wonderful new lover be who takes up your every moment, rules your days and prevents you from devoting your attention to your husband?

Beware, Josephine; one fine night the doors will be broken down and there I shall be. In truth, I am worried, my love, to have no news from you; write me a four page letter instantly made up from those delightful words which fill my heart with emotion and joy. I hope to hold you in my arms before long, when I shall lavish upon you a million kisses, burning as the equatorial sun.