Wide World of Quotes > Matsuo Basho Quotes


Matsuo Basho
Japanese poet
(1644-94)



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Early autumn--
rice field, ocean,
one green.
-- Matsuo Basho (translated by Lucien Stryk)

Friends part
forever -- wild geese
lost in cloud.
-- Matsuo Basho (translated by Lucien Stryk)

Old pond,
leap-splash--
a frog.
-- Matsuo Basho (translated by Lucien Stryk)

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.
-- Matsuo Basho

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

In the cicada's cry, ... no sign can foretell how soon it must die.
(Alternative translation:
O cricket from your cherry cry,No one would ever guess
How quickly you must die.)
-- Matsuo Basho

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

The moon is brighter since the barn burned.
-- 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

Just washed, How chill The white leeks!
-- Matsuo Basho

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

When I speak My lips feel cold - The autumn wind.
-- Matsuo Basho

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


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The selection of the above quotes and the writing of the accompanying notes was performed by the author David Paul Wagner.

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