Matsuo Basho Quotes

• Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.

  Matsuo Basho

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

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• Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.

  Matsuo Basho

  Beautiful, Real, Writing

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• Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.

  Matsuo Basho

  Water, Enlightenment, Woods

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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.

  Matsuo Basho

  Lying, Passion, Matter

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• There is nothing you can see that is not a flower; there is nothing you can think that is not the moon.

  Matsuo Basho

  Flower, Moon, Thinking

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• Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

  Matsuo Basho

  Inspirational, Nature, Healing

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• 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

  Time, Practice, Skulls

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• 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

  Fall, Rivers, Tree

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• A flute with no holes is not a flute.

  Matsuo Basho

  Flutes, Holes

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• 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

  Believe, Silence, Desire

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• Come, butterfly It's late- We've miles to go together.

  Matsuo Basho

  Butterfly, Together, Miles

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• Without the bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance to the whole world?

  Matsuo Basho

  Life, Plums, World

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• How much I desire! Inside my little satchel, the moon, and flowers

  Matsuo Basho

  Flower, Moon, Desire

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• The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.

  Matsuo Basho

  Horse, Home, Moon

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• From the pine tree, learn of the pine tree; And from the bamboo, of the bamboo

  Matsuo Basho

  Inspirational Life, Tree, Bamboo

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• Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves.

  Matsuo Basho

  Speak

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• With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow.

  Matsuo Basho

  Butterfly, Wind

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• An autumn night - don’t think your life didn’t matter.

  Matsuo Basho

  Autumn, Night, Thinking

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• 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

  Writing, Poetry, Doubt

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• Come, see the true flowers of this pained world.

  Matsuo Basho

  Flower, World

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• April's air stirs in Willow-leaves...a butterfly Floats and balances

  Matsuo Basho

  Spring, Butterfly, Air

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• 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

  Morning, Night, Clouds

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• 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

  Bamboo, Want, Preoccupation

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• The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.

  Matsuo Basho

  Flower, Sound, Bells

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• Year by year, the monkey's mask reveals the monkey

  Matsuo Basho

  Years, Monkeys, Mask

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