Zen is poetry; poetry is Zen.
The importance and unimportance of the self cannot be exaggerated.
Zen is the unsymbolization of the world.
Nothing divides one so much as thought.
There is no greater difference between men than between grateful and ungrateful people.
I myself think that to have a cat is more important than to have a Bible.
These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage.
Mud is the most poetical thing in the world.
A haiku is the expression of a temporary enlightenment, in which we see into the life of things.
If all men lead mechanical, unpoetical lives, this is the real nihilism, the real undoing of the world.
The love of nature is religion, and that religion is poetry; these three things are one thing. This is the unspoken creed of haiku poets.
Regarding R. H. Blyth: Blyth is sometimes perilous, naturally, since he’s a high-handed old poem himself, but he’s also sublime – and who goes to poetry for safety anyway.
You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.
It is good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven’t lost the things money can’t buy.
I remember reading once that some fellows use language to conceal thought; but it’s been my experience that a good many more use it instead of thought.
Appearances are deceitful, I know, but so long as they are, there’s nothing like having them deceive for us instead of against us.
The solution to our energy needs must go through a show of respect for nature, not, once again, a policy that does violence to our hills.
Consider carefully before you say a hard word to a man, but never let a chance to say a good one go by. Praise judiciously bestowed is money invested.
Back of every noble life there are principles that have fashioned it.
I ain’t one of those who believe that a half knowledge of a subject is useless, but it has been my experience that when a fellow has that half knowledge he finds it’s the other half which would really come in handy.