Quote

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

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Matsuo Basho
Age: 50 †
Born: 1644
Born: January 1
Died: 1694
Died: November 28
Artist
Poet
Writer
Vaxjo
Matsuo Basho
Bashō
Bashô
Basho
Matsuo Bashou
Percent
Tire
Good
Eighty
Never
Reveals
Sixty
Reveal
Fifty
Haiku
Subject
Seventy
Subjects
Seventies

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Winter solitude- in a world of one colour the sound of the wind.
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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.
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The fact that Saigyo composed a poem that begins, I shall be unhappy without loneliness, shows that he made loneliness his master.
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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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For this lovely bowl let us arrange these flowers since there is no rice.
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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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Real poetry, is to lead a beautiful life. To live poetry is better than to write it.
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I felt quite at home, / As if it were mine sleeping lazily / In this house of fresh air.
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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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The basis of art is change in the universe.
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The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.
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When I speak My lips feel cold - The autumn wind.
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I am one who eats breakfast gazing at morning glories.
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All my friends / viewing the moon – / an ugly bunch.
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Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.
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Between our two lives there is also the life of the cherry blossom.
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The sea darkens And a wild duck s call Is faintly white.
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The moon is brighter since the barn burned.
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A flute with no holes is not a flute.
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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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