black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.

Matsuo Basho

Old pond, frog jumps in – plop.
MATSUO BASHO

Old Pond
Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought.
MATSUO BASHO

Journey Path Seek Wisdom
Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and you do not learn.
MATSUO BASHO

Knowledge Learning Leaving Nature Wisdom Yourself
Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?
MATSUO BASHO

Cat Love Starve
For this lovely bowl let us arrange these flowers since there is no rice.
MATSUO BASHO

Flower Food Love Poverty Togetherness
The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, “I shall be unhappy without loneliness,” shows that he made loneliness his master.
MATSUO BASHO

Beginning Lonely Master Myself Poem
I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.
MATSUO BASHO

Eat Fast Glory Morning Myself
Year’s end, all corners of this floating world, swept.
MATSUO BASHO

Age Float Time World
Don’t imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon.
MATSUO BASHO

Fruit Imitation Myself
The journey itself is my home.
MATSUO BASHO

Home Journey Myself
On a bare branch a crow is perched – autumn evening.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Evening
The universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being.
MATSUO BASHO

Empty Intimate Relationship Unique Universe
Do not resemble me-Never be like a musk melon Cut in two identical halves.
MATSUO BASHO

Be Yourself Identity Imitation Myself Original
This autumn- why am I growing old? bird disappearing among clouds.
MATSUO BASHO

Autumn Disappear Growth Myself Old
Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.
MATSUO BASHO

Better Choice Leadership Life Original Poetry Reality Write
Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die.
MATSUO BASHO

Cry Death Flower

No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.

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No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Matsuo Basho Quotes