99+ Matsuo Basho Quotes On Friendship, Death And Japanese

Matsuo Basho was a 17th century Japanese poet and master of the haiku form. He is widely regarded as the greatest master of haiku and is credited with elevating the form to a level of artistic sophistication. He is remembered for his simple, yet profound writing which often focused on themes of nature and the human condition. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Matsuo Basho on friendship, love, death.

Top 10 Matsuo Basho Quotes

1. Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.
2. Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
3. Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.
4. No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.
5. Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.
6. Mountain-rose petals Falling, falling, falling now... Waterfall music
7. Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.
8. From the pine tree, learn of the pine tree; And from the bamboo, of the bamboo
9. Come, butterfly It's late- We've miles to go together.
10. An autumn night - don’t think your life didn’t matter.

Matsuo Basho Image Quotes

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

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

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

Matsuo Basho Short Quotes

• Even in Kyoto/Hearing the cuckoo's cry/I long for Kyoto
• The oak tree: not interested in cherry blossoms.
• Between our two lives there is also the life of the cherry blossom.
• Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant.
• From all these trees, in the salads, the soup, everywhere, cherry blossoms fall.
• Plunge Deep enough in order to see something that is hidden and glimmering.
• Every moment of life is the last, every poem is a death poem.
• A weathered skeleton in windy fields of memory, piercing like a knife.
• Orchidbreathing incense into butterfly's wings
• The journey itself is my home.

Matsuo Basho Quotes About Haiku

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

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

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

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

Why so scrawny, cat? Starving for fat fish or mice... Or backyard love? — Matsuo Basho

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

Old dark sleepy pool... Quick unexpected frog Goes plop! Watersplash! — Matsuo Basho

Twilight whippoorwill... Whistle on, sweet deepener Of dark loneliness — Matsuo Basho

Matsuo Basho Quotes About Nature

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

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

The sea darkens And a wild duck s call Is faintly white. — 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

Matsuo Basho Quotes About Sound

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

Winter solitude- in a world of one colour the sound of the wind. — Matsuo Basho

At the ancient pond the frog plunges into the sound of water — Matsuo Basho

The old pond, ah! A frog jumps in: The water's sound. — Matsuo Basho

Matsuo Basho Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

The moon and sun are travelers through eternity. Even the years wander on. Whether drifting through life on a boat or climbing toward old age leading a horse, each day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. — Matsuo Basho

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

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

Without bitterest cold that penetrates to the very bone, how can plum blossoms send forth their fragrance all over the world? — Matsuo Basho

The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter. — Matsuo Basho

the universe and its beings are a complementarity of empty infinity, intimate interrelationships, and total uniqueness of each and every being. — 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

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

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

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

Friends part foreverwild geese lost in cloud — Matsuo Basho

Spring rain leaking through the roof dripping from the wasps' nest. — Matsuo Basho

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

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

Year's end still in straw hat and sandals — Matsuo Basho

For this lovely bowl let us arrange these flowers since there is no rice. — Matsuo Basho

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

Harvest moon: around the pond I wander and the night is gone. — Matsuo Basho

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

Old pond, leap-splash - a frog. — Matsuo Basho

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

What is important is to keep our mind high in the world of true understanding, and returning to the world of our daily experience to seek therein the truth of beauty. No matter what we may be doing at a given moment, we must not forget that is has a bearing upon our everlasting self which is poetry. — Matsuo Basho

I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories. — Matsuo Basho

Breaking the silence Of an ancient pond, A frog jumped into water - A deep resonance. — Matsuo Basho

On a bare branch a crow is perched - autumn evening — Matsuo Basho

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

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

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

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

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

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

Winter garden, the moon thinned to a thread, insects singing. — 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

Come, see the true flowers of this pained world. — Matsuo Basho

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

The basis of art is change in the universe. — Matsuo Basho

Seek not the paths of the ancients; Seek that which the ancients sought. — Matsuo Basho

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

How I long to see among dawn flowers, the face of God. — Matsuo Basho

All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch. — Matsuo Basho

Collecting all The rains of May The swift Mogami River. — Matsuo Basho

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

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

A flute with no holes is not a flute. — Matsuo Basho

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

First snow-falling-on the half-finished bridge. — Matsuo Basho

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

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

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

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

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

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

If I had the knack I'd sing like Cherry flakes falling — Matsuo Basho

Learn how to listen as things speak for themselves. — Matsuo Basho

Spring rain conveyed under the trees in drops. — Matsuo Basho

Fresh spring! / The world is only Nine days old - / These fields and mountains! — Matsuo Basho

Around existence twine, (Oh, bridge that hangs across the gorge!) ropes of twisted vine. — Matsuo Basho

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

Year by year, the monkey's mask reveals the monkey — Matsuo Basho

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

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

Old pond, frog jumps in - plop. — Matsuo Basho

Life Lessons by Matsuo Basho

1. Matsuo Basho's poetry encourages us to appreciate the beauty of life and nature, and to live in the present moment.
2. His work emphasizes the importance of simplicity and humility, and reminds us to be mindful of our own mortality.
3. Basho's poetry also reminds us to take joy in the small moments and to appreciate the beauty of the world around us.