Matsuo Basho Quotes & Sayings

Lightning
doesn't leave you enlightened
- good to know that — Matsuo Basho

Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. — Matsuo Basho

I'm touched
by this chrysanthemum
it weathered the typhoon — Matsuo Basho

There we did begin, Cloisterd in the waterfall, Our summer discipline. — Matsuo Basho

Not knowing the name of the tree,
I stood in the flood
of its sweet scent. — Matsuo Basho

Nothing in the cry
of cicadas suggests they
are about to die — 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

Sadly, I part from you; Like a clam torn from its shell, I go, and autumn too. — Matsuo Basho

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

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

Learn the rules, and then forget them. — Matsuo Basho

Calm and serene The sound of a cicada Penetrates the rock. — Matsuo Basho

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

Come, butterfly
It's late-
We've miles to go together. — Matsuo Basho

Sick while traveling
dream of a withered field
wandering around — Matsuo Basho

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

The oak tree:
not interested
in cherry blossoms. — Matsuo Basho

Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant. — Matsuo Basho

With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow. — Matsuo Basho

Now the swinging bridge Is quieted with creepers ... Like our tendrilled life. — Matsuo Basho

From the pine tree, learn of the pine tree; And from the bamboo, of the bamboo — Matsuo Basho

Farewell, my old fan. / Having scribbled on it, / What could I do but tear it / At the end of summer? — Matsuo Basho

This snowy morning
That black crow I hate so much ...
But he's so beautiful! — Matsuo Basho

A weathered skeleton
in windy fields of memory,
piercing like a knife. — Matsuo Basho

This autumn-
why am I growing old?
bird disappearing among clouds. — Matsuo Basho

Year after year
On the monkey's face:
A monkey's face. — Matsuo Basho

Traveler's heart. Never settled long in one place. Like a portable fire. — Matsuo Basho

Felling a tree and gazing at the cut end - tonight's moon — 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

How much I desire! Inside my little satchel, the moon, and flowers — Matsuo Basho

From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall. — 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