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Li Bai Quotes

Li Bai , also known as Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai, was a Chinese poet acclaimed from his own day to the present as a genius and a romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights. He and his friend Du Fu were the two most prominent figures in the flourishing of Chinese poetry in the Tang dynasty, which is often called the "Golden Age of Chinese Poetry". The expression "Three Wonders" denote Li Bai's poetry, Pei Min's swordplay, and Zhang Xu's calligraphy.Around a thousand poems attributed to him are extant. His poems have been collected into the most important Tang dynasty poetry anthology Heyue yingling ji, compiled in 753 by Yin Fan, and thirty-four of his poems are included in the anthology Three Hundred Tang Poems, which was first published in the 18th century. In the same century, translations of his poems began to appear in Europe. The poems were models for celebrating the pleasures of friendship, the depth of nature, solitude, and the joys of drinking wine. Among the most famous are "Waking from Drunkenness on a Spring Day", "The Hard Road to Shu", and "Quiet Night Thought", which still appear in school texts in China. In the West, multilingual translations of Li's poems continue to be made. His life has even taken on a legendary aspect, including tales of drunkenness, chivalry, and the well-known fable that Li drowned when he reached from his boat to grasp the moon's reflection in the river while drunk.

Much of Li's life is reflected in his poetry: places which he visited, friends whom he saw off on journeys to distant locations perhaps never to meet again, his own dream-like imaginations embroidered with shamanic overtones, current events of which he had news, descriptions taken from nature in a timeless moment of poetry, and so on. However, of particular importance are the changes in the times through which he lived. His early poetry took place in the context of a "golden age" of internal peace and prosperity in the Chinese empire of the Tang dynasty, under the reign of an emperor who actively promoted and participated in the arts. This all changed suddenly and shockingly, beginning with the rebellion of the general An Lushan, when all of northern China was devastated by war and famine. Li's poetry as well takes on new tones and qualities. Unlike his younger friend Du Fu, Li did not live to see the quelling of these disorders. However, much of Li's poetry has survived, retaining enduring popularity in China and elsewhere.



Wikipedia  

✵ 19. May 701 – 30. November 762
Li Bai photo

Works
Li Bai: 19   quotes 5   likes

Famous Li Bai Quotes

“See how the Yellow River's waters move out of heaven,
Entering the ocean, never to return.”

Li Bai

"Bringing In The Wine" http://www.sanjeev.net/poetry/po-li/bringing-in-the-wine-109723.html (將進酒)

“You ask why I make my home in the mountain forest,
and I smile, and am silent,
and even my soul remains quiet:
it lives in the other world
which no one owns.
The peach trees blossom,
The water flows.”

Li Bai

“Here it is night: I stay at the Summit Temple.
Here I can touch the stars with my hand.
I dare not speak aloud in the silence
For fear of disturbing the dwellers of Heaven.”

Li Bai

"The Summit Temple" (夜宿山寺), in The White Pony: An Anthology of Chinese Poetry from the Earliest Times to the Present Day (1947), p. 173

“All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other—
Only the mountain and I.”

Li Bai

[38] "Alone Looking at the Mountain"
Variant translations:
The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
"Zazen on Ching-t'ing Mountain", trans. Sam Hamill
Flocks of birds fly high and vanish;
A single cloud, alone, calmly drifts on.
Never tired of looking at each other—
Only the Ching-t'ing Mountain and me.
"Sitting Alone in Ching-t'ing Mountain", trans. Irving Y. Lo

Li Bai Quotes about mountains

“You ask me why do I dwell in these green mountains,
But I smile without a reply, only an easy mind.
The river flows away silently, bearing the fallen peach blossoms,
Here is another world, but not the world of men.”

Li Bai

"Question and Answer in the Mountain" https://books.google.ca/books?id=hQ6lGvyMZMMC&pg=PA15

“Her robe is a cloud, her face a flower;
Her balcony, glimmering with the bright spring dew,
Is either the tip of earth's Jade Mountain,
Or a moon-edged roof of paradise.”

Li Bai

"A Song Of Pure Happiness I" (清平调之一)

“From the walls of Baidi high in the colored dawn
To Jiangling by night-fall is three hundred miles,
Yet monkeys are still calling on both banks behind me
To my boat these ten thousand mountains away.”

Li Bai

[33] "Through the Yangzi Gorges"

“Leaving at dawn the White Emperor crowned with cloud,
I've sailed a thousand li through Canyons in a day.
With the monkeys' adieus the riverbanks are loud,
My skiff has left ten thousand mountains far away.”

Li Bai

朝辞白帝彩云间，千里江陵一日还。
两岸猿声啼不住，轻舟已过万重山。
"Leaving the White Emperor Town for Jiangling", as translated by Xu Yuanchong in 300 Tang Poems: A New Translation, p. 92

Li Bai Quotes

“Before bed, the bright moon was shining.
Now, I think the ground has a frost covering.
I raise my head … to view the bright moon,
Then I lower my head … and I think of home.”

Li Bai Quiet Night Thought

"Thoughts on a Still Night" (静夜思); in Jean Ward's Li T'ai-po: Remembered (2008), p. 99
Variant: Variant translation:
Before my bed the moonlight glitters
Like frost upon the ground.
I look up to the mountain moon,
Look down and think of home.
Source: "Quiet Night Thought", in Classical Chinese Literature: An Anthology of Translations (2000), p. 723

Home , Thinking

“Enjoy a cup of wine while you're alive!
Do not care if your fame will not survive!”

Li Bai

"Hard Is the Way of the World" III http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?no=84&l=Tangshi, trans. Witter Bynner

Wine

“Since life is but a dream,
Why toil to no avail?”

Li Bai

"A Homily on Ideals in Life, Uttered in Springtime on Rising From a Drunken Slumber" (c. 750), in A Golden Treasury of Chinese Poetry: 121 Classical Poems (1976), p. 115
Variant translation by Arthur Waley: "Life in the World is but a big dream; I will not spoil it by any labour or care."

Life , Dreams

“Flying waters descending straight three thousand feet,
Till I think the Milky Way has tumbled from the ninth height of Heaven.”

Li Bai

"Viewing the Waterfall at Mount Lu" (望庐山瀑布), trans. Burton Watson

Way , Thinking , Water , Flying

“Oh, but it is high and very dangerous!
Such travelling is harder than scaling the blue sky.”

Li Bai

"Hard Roads In Shu" https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hard-roads-in-shu/ (蜀道难)

Travel

“I sat drinking and did not notice the dusk,
Till falling petals filled the folds of my dress.”

Li Bai Self-Abandonment

"Self-Abandonment" ( 自遣 http://www.chinese-poems.com/lb14t.html), as translated by Arthur Waley (1919)

Drink

“A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.”

Li Bai

"Drinking Alone by Moonlight" (月下獨酌), one of Li Bai's best-known poems, as translated by Arthur Waley in More Translations From the Chinese (1919)
Variant translation:
From a pot of wine among the flowers
I drank alone. There was no one with me—
Till, raising my cup, I asked the bright moon
To bring me my shadow and make us three.
Alas, the moon was unable to drink
And my shadow tagged me vacantly;
But still for a while I had these friends
To cheer me through the end of spring...
I sang. The moon encouraged me.
I danced. My shadow tumbled after.
As long as I knew, we were boon companions.
And then I was drunk, and we lost one another.
...Shall goodwill ever be secure?
I watch the long road of the River of Stars.
"Drinking Alone with the Moon" (trans. Witter Bynner and Kiang Kang-hu)

Men , Way , Spring , Flowers

“I will mount a long wind some day and break the heavy waves,
And set my cloudy sail straight and bridge the deep, deep sea.”

Li Bai

"The Hard Road" (行路難) I http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?no=82&l=Tangshi, trans. Witter Bynner

Sea

“On Mirror Lake outspread for miles and miles,
The lotus lilies in full blossom teem.
In fifth moon Xi Shi gathers them with smiles,
Watchers o'erwhelm the bank of Yuoye Stream.
Her boat turns back without waiting moonrise
To royal house amid amorous sighs.”

Li Bai

Ballads Of Four Seasons: Summer (子夜四时歌 夏歌)

Smile , Waiting , Housing

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