Matsuo Basho

Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about…

— 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

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

— Matsuo Basho

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

— 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…

— Matsuo Bashô

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

— Matsuo Basho

A flute with no holes is not a flute.

— Matsuo Basho

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

— Matsuo Basho

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.

— Matsuo Basho

Learn the rules, and then forget them.

— Matsuo Basho

Go to the object. Leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Do not impose yourself on the object. Become one with the object.…

— Matsuo Basho

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

— 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

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

— 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

Learn about a pine tree from a pine tree, and about a bamboo plant from a bamboo plant.

— Matsuo Basho

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

— Matsuo Basho

The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never…

— Matsuo Basho

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

— Matsuo Basho

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

— Matsuo Basho

“This snowy morning That black crow I hate so much. . . But he's so beautiful!”

— Matsuo Bashō

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

— Matsuo Basho

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

— Matsuo Basho

I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.

— Matsuo Basho

Sabi is the color of haikai. It is different from tranquility. For example, if an old man dresses up in armor and…

— Matsuo Basho