Matsuo Basho Quotes - Page 3

Summer grasses — all that remains of great soldiers' imperial dreams.

I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.

Orchidbreathing incense into butterfly's wings

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

I hope to have gathered To repay your kindness The willow leaves Scattered in the garden.

I felt quite at home, / As if it were mine sleeping lazily / In this house of fresh air.

Year's end, all corners of this floating world, swept.

Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant.

He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master.

Seek on high bare trails Sky-reflecting violets... Mountain-top jewels

Don't imitate me / we are not two halves / of a muskmelon.

Awakened at midnight by the sound of the water jar cracking from the ice

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.

The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, "I shall be unhappy without loneliness," shows that he made loneliness his master.

Clapping my hands with the echoes the summer moon begins to dawn.

Come out to view / the truth of flowers blooming / in poverty.

A thicket of summer grass / Is all that remains / Of the dreams of ancient warriors.

Friends part foreverwild geese lost in cloud

O cricket from your cherry cry No one would ever guess How quickly you must die.

Poverty's child - he starts to grind the rice, and gazes at the moon.

Not to think of yourself / as someone who did not count -- / Festival of the Souls.

Twilight whippoorwill... Whistle on, sweet deepener Of dark loneliness

Along my journey / through this transitory world, / new year's housecleaning.

Ballet in the air... Twin butterflies until, twice white They Meet, they mate

Do not resemble me-Never be like a musk melon Cut in two identical halves.