Bashō Matsuo Quotes

Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.

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

The journey itself is my home.

If I had the knackI'd sing likeCherry flakes falling

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

Many solemn nights Blond moon, we stand and marvel...Sleeping our noons away

Here is a greedy man who keeps to himselfThe beautiful pears ripe in his garden.

Awakened at midnightby the sound of the water jarcracking from the ice

ChrysanthemumSilence - monk Sips his morning tea.

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

Twilight whippoorwill...Whistle on, sweet deepenerOf dark loneliness

Had I crossed the passSupported by a stick, I would have spared myselfThe fall from the horse.

On this roadwhere nobody else travelsautumn nightfall.

It is only a barbarous mind that sees other than the flower, merely an animal mind that dreams of other than the moon.

Not knowing the name of the tree, I stood in the floodof its sweet scent.

Describe plum-blossoms?Better than my verses...whiteWordless Butterflies

Winter solitude-in a world of one colourthe sound of the wind.

Dead my old fine hopesAnd dry my dreaming but still...Iris, blue each spring

Summer grasses, All that remainsOf soldiers' dreams