Calm and serene The sound of a cicada Penetrates the rock.
MATSUO BASHODon’t imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon.
More Matsuo Basho Quotes
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First snow-falling-on the half-finished bridge.
MATSUO BASHO -
A flute with no holes is not a flute.
MATSUO BASHO -
Farewell, my old fan. / Having scribbled on it, / What could I do but tear it / At the end of summer?
MATSUO BASHO -
A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams of ancient warriors.
MATSUO BASHO -
An autumn night – don’t think your life didn’t matter.
MATSUO BASHO -
Year’s end, all corners of this floating world, swept.
MATSUO BASHO -
The journey itself is my home.
MATSUO BASHO -
Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn.
MATSUO BASHO -
For this lovely bowl let us arrange these flowers since there is no rice.
MATSUO BASHO -
Fresh spring! / The world is only Nine days old – / These fields and mountains!
MATSUO BASHO -
Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
MATSUO BASHO -
Traveler’s heart. Never settled long in one place. Like a portable fire.
MATSUO BASHO -
I hope to have gathered To repay your kindness The willow leaves Scattered in the garden.
MATSUO BASHO -
The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.
MATSUO BASHO -
The sea darkens And a wild duck s call Is faintly white.
MATSUO BASHO -
Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.
MATSUO BASHO -
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
MATSUO BASHO -
Old dark sleepy pool… Quick unexpected frog Goes plop! Watersplash!
MATSUO BASHO -
Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice.
MATSUO BASHO -
From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
MATSUO BASHO -
Make the universe your companion, always bearing in mind the true nature of things-mountains and rivers, trees and grasses, and humanity-and enjoy the falling blossoms and the scattering leaves.
MATSUO BASHO -
All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.
MATSUO BASHO -
The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, “I shall be unhappy without loneliness,” shows that he made loneliness his master.
MATSUO BASHO -
Old pond, frog jumps in – plop.
MATSUO BASHO -
Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone.
MATSUO BASHO -
Go to the object. Leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Do not impose yourself on the object. Become one with the object. Plunge deep enough into the object to see something like a hidden glimmering there.
MATSUO BASHO