A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams of ancient warriors.
MATSUO BASHOYear by year, the monkey’s mask reveals the monkey.
More Matsuo Basho Quotes
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Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?
MATSUO BASHO -
I felt quite at home, / As if it were mine sleeping lazily / In this house of fresh air.
MATSUO BASHO -
Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die.
MATSUO BASHO -
All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.
MATSUO BASHO -
I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.
MATSUO BASHO -
A flute with no holes is not a flute.
MATSUO BASHO -
Old pond, leap-splash – a frog.
MATSUO BASHO -
Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone.
MATSUO BASHO -
April’s air stirs in Willow-leaves, a butterfly Floats and balances.
MATSUO BASHO -
How much I desire! Inside my little satchel, the moon, and flowers.
MATSUO BASHO -
First snow-falling-on the half-finished bridge.
MATSUO BASHO -
Felling a tree and gazing at the cut end – tonight’s moon.
MATSUO BASHO -
Plunge Deep enough in order to see something that is hidden and glimmering.
MATSUO BASHO -
Sadly, I part from you; Like a clam torn from its shell, I go, and autumn too.
MATSUO BASHO -
I hope to have gathered To repay your kindness The willow leaves Scattered in the garden.
MATSUO BASHO






