When composing a verse let there not be a hair’s breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree or a swordsman leaping at a dangerous enemy.
MATSUO BASHOWith every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow.
More Matsuo Basho Quotes
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There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.
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First snow-falling-on the half-finished bridge.
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Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
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Around existence twine, (Oh, bridge that hangs across the gorge!) ropes of twisted vine.
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Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone.
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The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, “I shall be unhappy without loneliness,” shows that he made loneliness his master.
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Come, see the true flowers of this pained world.
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There came a day when the clouds drifting along with the wind aroused a wanderlust in me, and I set off on a journey to roam along the seashores
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Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.
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Old dark sleepy pool… Quick unexpected frog Goes plop! Watersplash!
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Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn.
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Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
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Do not resemble me-Never be like a musk melon Cut in two identical halves.
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Learn the rules, and then forget them.
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At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water.
MATSUO BASHO