Harshness is for the good of a boy, soft-heartedness will ruin him. - Ihara Saikaku

For each of the four hundred and four bodily ailments celebrated physicians have produced infallible remedies, but the malady which brings the greatest distress to mankind — to even the wisest and cleverest of us — is the plague of poverty.

When you send a clerk on business to a distant province, a man of rigid morals is not your best choice.

To think twice in every matter and follow the lead of others is no way to make money.