If we live by subhuman means we might as well never have had the good fortune to be born human. - Ihara Saikaku

Heaven says nothing, and the whole earth grows rich beneath its silent rule. Men, too, are touched by heaven's virtue; yet, in their greater part, they are creatures of deceit. They are born, it seems, with an emptiness of soul, and must take their qualities wholly from things without. To be born thus empty into this modern age, this mixture of good and ill, and yet steer through life on an honest course to the splendors of success — this is a feat reserved for paragons of our kind, a task beyond the nature of the normal man.

Though mothers and fathers give us life, it is money alone which preserves it.

To make a fortune some assistance from fate is essential. Ability alone is insufficient.