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Let me not spend my life
lamenting the world’s sorrows
for above
in the wide sky
the moon shines pure

— Saigyo Gazing at the Moon: Buddhist Poems of Solitude (2021)

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More quotes by Saigyo

The cherries'
only fault:
the crowds
that gather
when they bloom.

If not for solitude,
how dismal my life would be!

Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology (1991)

Even a person
free of passion
would be moved to sadness:
autumn evening in a marsh
where snipes fly up.

It creates a heart
even in those among us
who think of themselves
as indifferent to all things—
the world. this first wind of autumn.

Traditional Japanese Poetry: An Anthology (1991)

How I delight
in this well-timed snow
that buries the mountain path
behind me as I enter
intent on long seclusion

Gazing at the Moon: Buddhist Poems of Solitude (2021)

All Saigyo quotes →

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Saigyo (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.