"The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter."
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Quote collection
Matsuo Basho quotes (page 2 of 6)
103 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
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"the universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being."
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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."
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"He who creates three to five haiku poems during a lifetime is a haiku poet. He who attains to completes ten is a master."
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"The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of."
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"The oak tree: not interested in cherry blossoms."
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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."
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"Between our two lives there is also the life of the cherry blossom."
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"Year by year, the monkey's mask reveals the monkey"
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"With every gust of wind, the butterfly changes its place on the willow."
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"The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers."
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"How much I desire! Inside my little satchel, the moon, and flowers"
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"Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die"
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"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."
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"From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall."
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"Plunge Deep enough in order to see something that is hidden and glimmering."
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"April's air stirs in Willow-leaves...a butterfly Floats and balances"
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"Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought."
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"Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant."
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