Li Bai Quotes

• The world is like a great empty dream. Why should one toil away one's life?

  Li Bai

  Dream, Toil, World

  28 Copy quote

• You ask why I make my home n the mountain forest,
  and I smile, and am silent,
  and even my soul remains quiet:
  it lives in the other world which no one owns.
  The peach trees blossom,
  The water flows.

  Li Bai

  Home, Other Worlds, Water

  19 Copy quote

• To find pleasure in life, make the most of the spring.

  Li Bai

  Spring, Pleasure

  Li Po, “Drinking Alone In The Moonlight”

  15 Copy quote

• Shade and light are different in every valley.

  Li Bai

  Light, Different, Valleys

  25 Copy quote

• The living is a passing traveler; The dead, a man come home.

  Li Bai

  Home, Men, Passing

  Bai Li (1922). “The Works of Li Po, the Chinese Poet”

  11 Copy quote

• Heaven is high, Earth Wide. Bitter between them flies my sorrow.

  Li Bai

  Heaven, Sorrow, Earth

  28 Copy quote

• Since Life is but a Dream, Why toil to no avail?

  Li Bai

  Dream, Toil, Life Is

  "A Homily on Ideals in Life, Uttered in Springtime on Rising from a Drunken Slumber" (ca. 750)

  7 Copy quote

• Beneath the blossoms with a pot of wine, No friends at hand, so I poured alone; I raised my cup to invite the moon, Turned to my shadow, and we became three.

  Li Bai

  Wine, Moon, Hands

  "Drinking Alone in the Midnight" (eighth cent.) (translation by Elling Eide)

  10 Copy quote

• I am asked why I live in the green mountains; I smile but reply not, for my heart is at rest. The flowing waters carry the image of the peach blossoms far, far away; there is an earth, there is a heaven, unknown to men.

  Li Bai

  Heart, Men, Water

  13 Copy quote

• All the birds have flown up and gone; A lonely cloud floats leisurely by. We never tire of looking at each other - Only the mountain and I.

  Li Bai

  Lonely, Clouds, Bird

  Li Po, “Alone Looking At The Mountain”

  19 Copy quote

• The birds have vanished into the sky, and now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.

  Li Bai

  Garden, Clouds, Sky

  10 Copy quote

• I bow in reverence to the white cloud.

  Li Bai

  Nature, Clouds, White

  17 Copy quote

• To wash and rinse our souls of their age-old sorrows,We drained a hundred jugs of wine.A splendid night it was . . . .In the clear moonlight we were loath to go to bed,But at last drunkenness overtook us;And we laid ourselves down on the empty mountain,The earth for pillow, and the great heaven for coverlet

  Li Bai

  Wine, Night, Heaven

  Li Po, “A Mountain Revelry”

  20 Copy quote

• Forever and forever and forever

  Li Bai

  Forever, Dharma Bums

  Ezra Pound, Bai Li (1917). “Lustra of Ezra Pound, with Earlier Poems”

  12 Copy quote

• In a universe animated by the interaction of yin (female) and yang (male) energies, the moon was literally yin visible. Indeed, it was the very germ or source of yin, and the sun was its yang counterpart.

  Li Bai

  Moon, Energy, Males

  David Hinton, Bai Li, Po Li, Li Po (1996). “The Selected Poems”, p.14, New Directions Publishing

  10 Copy quote

• You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain; I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care. As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown, I have a world apart that is not among men.

  Li Bai

  Spring, Heart, Men

  Li Po, “Green Mountain”

  12 Copy quote

• Growing older, I love only quietness: who need be concerned with the things of this world? Looking back, what better plan than this: returning to the grove.

  Li Bai

  Needs, World, Growing

  8 Copy quote

• The autumn air is clear,
  The autumn moon is bright.
  Fallen leaves gather and scatter,
  The jackdaw perches and starts anew.
  We think of each other- when will we meet?
  This hour, this night, my feelings are hard.

  Li Bai

  Autumn, Moon, Night

  10 Copy quote

• The paired butterflies are already yellow with August Over the grass in the West garden; They hurt me. I grow older.

  Li Bai

  Hurt, Butterfly, Garden

  Ezra Pound, Bai Li (1917). “Lustra of Ezra Pound, with Earlier Poems”

  12 Copy quote

• Gently I stir a white feather fan,
  With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
  I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
  A wind from the pine-tree trickles on my bare head.

  Li Bai

  Summer, August, Wind

  Li Po, “Summer In The Mountains”

  12 Copy quote

• Now let you and me buy wine today! Why say we have not the price? My horse spotted with five flowers, My fur-coat worth a thousand pieces of gold, These I will take out, and call my boy To barter them for sweet wine. And with you twain, let me forget The sorrow of ten thousand ages!

  Li Bai

  Sweet, Horse, Flower

  13 Copy quote

• Bears, dragons, tempestuous on mountain and river, Startle the forest and make the heights tremble. Clouds darken beneath the darkness of rain, streams pale with a pallor of mist. The gods of Thunder and Lightning Shatter the whole range.

  Li Bai

  Spring, Rain, Winter

  11 Copy quote

• From the walls of Baidi high in the coloured dawn To Jiangling by night-fall is three hundred miles, Yet monkeys are still calling on both banks behind me To my boat these ten thousand mountains away.

  Li Bai

  Wall, Fall, Night

  Li Po, “Through The Yangzi Gorges”

  4 Copy quote

• From some home a jade flute sends dark notes drifting,
  Scattering on the spring wind that fills Lo-yang.
  Tonight, if we should hear the willow-breaking song,
  Who could help but long for the gardens of home?

  Li Bai

  Song, Spring, Home

  Li Po, “Spring Night In Lo-Yang Hearing A Flute”

  4 Copy quote

• In the battlefield men grapple each other and die;
  The horses of the vanquished utter lamentable cries to heaven,
  While ravens and kites peck at human entrails,
  Carry them up in their flight, and hang them on the branches of dead trees.

  Li Bai

  Veterans Day, Horse, Men

  Li Po, “Nefarious War”

  4 Copy quote

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