Matsuo Bashō · 128 pages
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“In this mortal frame of mine which is made of a hundred bones and nine orifices there is something, and this something is called a wind-swept spirit for lack of a better name, for it is much like a thin drapery that is torn and swept away at the slightest stir of the wind. This something in me took to writing poetry years ago, merely to amuse itself at first, but finally making it its lifelong business. It must be admitted, however, that there were times when it sank into such dejection that it was almost ready to drop its pursuit, or again times when it was so puffed up with pride that it exulted in vain victories over the others. Indeed, ever since it began to write poetry, it has never found peace with itself, always wavering between doubts of one kind and another. At one time it wanted to gain security by entering the service of a court, and at another it wished to measure the depth of its ignorance by trying to be a scholar, but it was prevented from either because of its unquenchable love of poetry. The fact is, it knows no other art than the art of writing poetry, and therefore, it hangs on to it more or less blindly.”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal
“Searching for the scent
of the early plum,
I found it by the eaves
Of a proud storehouse.”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal
“Had I crossed the pass
Supported by a stick,
I would have spared myself
The fall from the horse.”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal
“The River Mogami has drowned
Far and deep
Beneath its surging waves
The flaming sun of summer”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal
“Here is a greedy man who keeps to himself
The beautiful pears ripe in his garden.”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal
“A bush-warbler,
Coming to the verandah-edge,
Left its droppings
On the rice-cakes.”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal
“The moon and sun are eternal travelers. Even the years wander on. A lifetime adrift in a boat or in old age leading a tired horse into the years, every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home. —Bashō: Oku-no-hosomichi”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal
“Days and months are travellers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives travelling. There are a great number of ancients, too, who died on the road. I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud-moving wind - filled with a strong desire to wander.”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal
“It is only a barbarous mind that sees other than the flower, merely an animal mind that dreams of other than the moon.”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal
“夏草や
兵どもが
夢の跡
The summer grasses—
For many brave warriors
The aftermath of dreams.
- Donald Keene, Travelers of a Hundred Ages, New York, 1999, p. 316 (Translation: Donald Keene)”
― Matsuo Bashō, quote from Backroads to Far Towns: Basho's Travel Journal
“This is not to say that joy is a compensation for loss, but that each of them, joy and loss, exists in its own right and must be recognised for what it is... So joy can be joy and sorrow can be sorrow, with neither of them casting either light or shadow on the other.”
― Marilynne Robinson, quote from Lila
“We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. I desperately wanted mercy for Jimmy Dill and would have done anything to create justice for him, but I couldn’t pretend that his struggle was disconnected from my own. The ways in which I have been hurt—and have hurt others—are different from the ways Jimmy Dill suffered and caused suffering. But our shared brokenness connected us. Paul Farmer, the renowned physician who has spent his life trying to cure the world’s sickest and poorest people, once quoted me something that the writer Thomas Merton said: We are bodies of broken bones. I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity. I thought of the guards strapping Jimmy Dill to the gurney that very hour. I thought of the people who would cheer his death and see it as some kind of victory. I realized they were broken people, too, even if they would never admit it. So many of us have become afraid and angry. We’ve become so fearful and vengeful that we’ve thrown away children, discarded the disabled, and sanctioned the imprisonment of the sick and the weak—not because they are a threat to public safety or beyond rehabilitation but because we think it makes us seem tough, less broken. I thought of the victims of violent crime and the survivors of murdered loved ones, and how we’ve pressured them to recycle their pain and anguish and give it back to the offenders we prosecute. I thought of the many ways we’ve legalized vengeful and cruel punishments, how we’ve allowed our victimization to justify the victimization of others. We’ve submitted to the harsh instinct to crush those among us whose brokenness is most visible. But simply punishing the broken—walking away from them or hiding them from sight—only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity.”
― Bryan Stevenson, quote from Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
“That’s me, Brady thought happily. When they give your middle name, you know you’re an authentic boogeyman.”
― Stephen King, quote from End of Watch
“As North Koreans, we were innocent in a way that I cannot fully explain.”
― Yeonmi Park, quote from In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
“Sometimes he thinks that if he could only trace the path of his life carefully enough, everything would become clear. The ways that he screwed up would make sense. He closes his eyes tightly. His life wasn't always a mistake, he thinks, and he breathes uncertainly for awhile, trying to find a pathway into unconsciousness, into sleep. ”
― Dan Chaon, quote from You Remind Me of Me
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