Matsuo Basho Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Matsuo Basho.
Famous Quotes By 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
Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. — Matsuo Basho
In the end, without skill or talent, I've given myself over entirely to poetry. Po Chu-i labored at it until he nearly burst. Tu Fu starved rather than abandon it. Neither my intelligence nor my writing is comparable to such men. Nevertheless, in the end, we ALL live in phantom huts. — Matsuo Basho
Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant. — Matsuo Basho
Farewell, my old fan. / Having scribbled on it, / What could I do but tear it / At the end of summer? — Matsuo Basho
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
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
Sabi is the color of haikai. It is different from tranquility. For example, if an old man dresses up in armor and helmet and goes to the battlefield, or in colorful brocade kimono, attending (his lord) at a banquet, [sabi] is like this old figure. — Matsuo Basho
Temple of Suma
hearing the unblown flute
in the deep shade of trees
sumadera ya / fukanu fue kiku / koshitayami — Matsuo Basho
Twilight whippoorwill ... Whistle on, sweet deepener Of dark loneliness — Matsuo Basho
Just washed, How chill The white leeks! — Matsuo Basho
Poverty's child -
he starts to grind the rice,
and gazes at the moon. — Matsuo Basho
Everyone in this house
has gray hair, walks with a cane,
visits the graveyard — Matsuo Basho
He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master. — Matsuo Basho
In this world of ours,
We eat only to cast out,
Sleep only to wake,
And what comes after all that
Is simply to die at last. — Matsuo Basho
The old pond, ah! A frog jumps in: The water's sound. — Matsuo Basho
Along my journey / through this transitory world, / new year's housecleaning. — Matsuo Basho
Ballet in the air ... Twin butterflies until, twice white They Meet, they mate — Matsuo Basho
Awakened at midnight
by the sound of the water jar
cracking from the ice — Matsuo Basho
Between our two lives
there is also the life of
the cherry blossom. — Matsuo Basho
Winter garden,
the moon thinned to a thread,
insects singing. — Matsuo Basho
The temple bell stops
But the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers — Matsuo Basho
Come, see the true flowers of this pained world. — Matsuo Basho
In this poor body, composed of one hundred bones and nine openings, is something called spirit, a flimsy curtain swept this way and that by the slightest breeze. It is spirit, such as it is, which led me to poetry, at first little more than a pastime, then the full business of my life. There have been times when my spirit, so dejected, almost gave up the quest, other times when it was proud, triumphant. So it has been from the very start, never finding peace with itself, always doubting the worth of what it makes. — Matsuo Basho
When your consciousness has become ripe in true zazen-pure like clear water, like a serene mountain lake, not moved by any wind-then anything may serve as a medium for realization. — Matsuo Basho
Had I crossed the pass
Supported by a stick,
I would have spared myself
The fall from the horse. — Matsuo Basho
Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem. — Matsuo Basho
Ah, it is spring,
Great spring it is now,
Great, great spring -
Ah, Great - — Matsuo Basho
My body, now close to fifty years of age, has become an old tree that bears bitter peaches, a snail which has lost its shell, a bagworm separated from its bag; it drifts with the winds and clouds that know no destination. Morning and night I have eaten traveler's fare, and have held out for alms a pilgrim's wallet. — Matsuo Basho
If you're an oak
you don't pretend
you are a flower — Matsuo Basho
Spring rain conveyed under the trees in drops. — 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
The River Mogami has drowned
Far and deep
Beneath its surging waves
The flaming sun of summer — Matsuo Basho
Chrysanthemum
Silence - monk
Sips his morning tea. — Matsuo Basho
Breaking the silence Of an ancient pond, A frog jumped into water - A deep resonance. — Matsuo Basho
Around existence twine, (Oh, bridge that hangs across the gorge!) ropes of twisted vine. — Matsuo Basho
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself. — Matsuo Basho
If I had the knack
I'd sing like
Cherry flakes falling — Matsuo Basho
Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty. — Matsuo Basho
On this road
where nobody else travels
autumn nightfall. — 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
The moon is brighter since the barn burned. — Matsuo Basho
Plunge Deep enough in order to see something that is hidden and glimmering. — Matsuo Basho
At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water — Matsuo Basho
Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves. — Matsuo Basho
At one time I was weary of verse writing, and wanted to give it up. At another time I was determined to be a poet until I could establish a proud name over others. The alternatives battled in my mind and made my life restless. — Matsuo Basho
Operating superficially, the mind is random in its activity and stale in its insights and images. However, with practice and experience the mind is freed from the skull, and the fresh and new can appear as though for the first time. It — Matsuo Basho
Without the bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance to the whole world? — Matsuo Basho
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 — Matsuo Basho
Don't imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon. — Matsuo Basho
Collecting all The rains of May The swift Mogami River. — Matsuo Basho
Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it. — Matsuo Basho
All who have achieved excellence in art possess one thing in common; that is, a mind to be one with nature, throughout the seasons. — Matsuo Basho
A flute with no holes is not a flute. — Matsuo Basho
Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn. — Matsuo Basho
An autumn night - don't think your life didn't matter. — Matsuo Basho
There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon. — Matsuo Basho
Spring rain leaking through the roof dripping from the wasps' nest. — Matsuo Basho
I do not seek to walk in the paths of the wise men of old, I seek what they sought. — Matsuo Basho
Why so scrawny, cat?
Starving for fat fish or mice ...
Or backyard love? — Matsuo Basho
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
Here is a greedy man who keeps to himself
The beautiful pears ripe in his garden. — Matsuo Basho
I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories. — Matsuo Basho
How I long to see
among dawn flowers,
the face of God. — Matsuo Basho
When I speak My lips feel cold - The autumn wind. — Matsuo Basho
Do not resemble me-Never be like a musk melon Cut in two identical halves. — Matsuo Basho
A bush-warbler,
Coming to the verandah-edge,
Left its droppings
On the rice-cakes. — Matsuo Basho
I hope to have gathered
To repay your kindness
The willow leaves
Scattered in the garden. — 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
Pausing between clouds
the moon rests
in the eyes of its beholders — Matsuo Basho
Even in Kyoto/Hearing the cuckoo's cry/I long for Kyoto — Matsuo Basho
Old dark sleepy pool ... Quick unexpected frog Goes plop! Watersplash! — Matsuo Basho
Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone. — Matsuo Basho