Poverty’s child – he starts to grind the rice, and gazes at the moon.
MATSUO BASHOBefore enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.
More Matsuo Basho Quotes
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From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
MATSUO BASHO -
I hope to have gathered To repay your kindness The willow leaves Scattered in the garden.
MATSUO BASHO -
The journey itself is my home.
MATSUO BASHO -
Felling a tree and gazing at the cut end – tonight’s moon.
MATSUO BASHO -
At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water.
MATSUO BASHO -
I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.
MATSUO BASHO -
April’s air stirs in Willow-leaves, a butterfly Floats and balances.
MATSUO BASHO -
Learn the rules, and then forget them.
MATSUO BASHO -
The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.
MATSUO BASHO -
A flute with no holes is not a flute.
MATSUO BASHO -
Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone.
MATSUO BASHO -
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.
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 -
Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?
MATSUO BASHO






