116. "Buffett became rich only by chance."

"Although the method for making a large profit from equity investment or foreign exchange trading does not exist, there is no end to the number of sellers of such a method. There are people who have become extraordinarily rich by equity investment like Warren Buffett, or course, but they became so only by chance."

From "Essence of Monetary Crisis" written by Yukio Noguchi and published by Toyo Keizai Inc.

115. "The impossibility of taxing the people, in proportion to their revenue, have given occasion to the invention of taxes upon consumable commodities."

"The impossibility of taxing the people, in propotion to their revenue, by any capitation, seems to have given occasion to the invention of taxes upon consumable commodities. The state not knowing how to tax, directly and proportionably, the revenue of its subjects, endeavours to tax it indirectly by taxing their expence, which, it is supposed, will in most cases be nearly in proportion to their revenue. Their expence is taxed by taxing the consumable commodities upon which it is laid out."

From "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith

114. "Once a customer considers a brand reliable and attractive, he continues to purchase goods with the brand without considering prices and functions of such goods...

... In short, a citizen does not necessarily take a rational action in order to maximize his own benefit.”

From "Social Shift" written by Tohru Saito and published by Nikkei Inc.

113. "Japanese do not have an established custom of inviting friends to their homes...

...simply because their homes have traditionally been small, crowded, and considered inappropriate for entertaining. Instead, it became the practice to invite people to public dirinking places and restaurants--one of the reasons Japan has more restaurants and drinking places per capita than any other nation."

From "Etiquette Guide to Japan" by Boye Lafayette de Mente, Tuttle Publishing

112. "A thing acquired by violence can be retained by violence alone, while one aquired by truth can be retained only by truth."

By Mahatma Gandhi

From "Gandhi - A Life" written by Yogesh Chadha and published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

111. "Be suspicious of -ize; let your ear and your eye guide you...

... Never tack -ize onto a noun to create a verb. Usually you will discover that a useful verb already exits. Why say "moisturize" when there is the simple, unpretentious word moisten?"

From "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, published by Allyn and Bacon.

110 "No matter how different in age or income, a man and a woman in a romantic relationship must be basically on an equal footing...

You don't need to feel inferior or guilty unless you are doing anything unfaithful such as having an affair... Of course, you don't need to be overly confident to say "You must be very happy in a relationship with me." Rather, it is necessary for you to admit that you have some faults unreservedly, and to mend some of them if necessary. However, a man or a woman in a relationship basically has a right to think, "I'm on an equal footing with my lover. Each one of us have good points and bad points." If one of you have to curry favor with the other, you should think there is a problem in the relationship."


From "A Book for Loving Your Weak Self" written by Rika Kayama and published by Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc.