The ancient sages never put their teachings in a systematic form. They spoke in paradoxes, for they were afraid of uttering half-truths. They began by talking like fools and ended by making their hearers wise.

Tea with us became more than an idealisation of the form of drinking it is a religion of the art of life. The beverage grew to be an excuse for the worship of purity and refinement, a sacred function at which the host and guest joined to produce for that occasion the utmost beatitude of the mundane.

The canvas upon which the artist paints is the spectator's mind.

It is not the accumulation of extraneous knowledge, but the realization of the self within, that constitutes true progress.

Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others.

Fain would we remain barbarians, if our claim to civilization were to be based on the gruesome glory of war.

For life is an expression, our unconscious actions the constant betrayal of our innermost thought. Perhaps we reveal ourselves too much in small things because we have so little of the great to conceal. The tiny incidents of daily rouitine are as much a commentary of racial ideas as the highest flight of philosophy or poetry.

A garden is a friend you can visit any time.

The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.

The art of today is that which really belongs to us: it is our own reflection. In condemning it we but condemn ourselves.

Our mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their colour their pigments are our emotions their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.

Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order.

In the worship of Bacchus, we have sacrificed too freely.... Why not consecrate ourselves to the queen of the Camelias, and revel in the warm stream of sympathy that flows from her altar? In the liquid amber within the ivory-porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet reticence of Confucius.

Perfection is everywhere if we only choose to recognise it.