Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
MATSUO BASHOSeek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought.
More Matsuo Basho Quotes
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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 BASHO -
Year’s end, all corners of this floating world, swept.
MATSUO BASHO -
Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn.
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 -
Not to think of yourself / as someone who did not count — / Festival of the Souls.
MATSUO BASHO -
A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams of ancient warriors.
MATSUO BASHO -
Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice… Or backyard love?
MATSUO BASHO -
Summer grasses — all that remains of great soldiers’ imperial dreams.
MATSUO BASHO -
How I long to see among dawn flowers, the face of God.
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 -
No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.
MATSUO BASHO -
Calm and serene The sound of a cicada Penetrates the rock.
MATSUO BASHO -
Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty.
MATSUO BASHO -
A weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife.
MATSUO BASHO -
Around existence twine, (Oh, bridge that hangs across the gorge!) ropes of twisted vine.
MATSUO BASHO






