Quotes from book
The Book of Tea

Name: The Book of Tea
Author: Kakuzo Okakura

The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzō is a long essay linking the role of chadō to the aesthetic and cultural aspects of Japanese life.

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

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Source: The Book of Tea

“But when we consider how small after all the cup of human enjoyment is, how soon overflowed with tears, how easily drained to the dregs in our quenchless thirst for infinity, we shall not blame ourselves for making so much of the tea-cup.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Source: The Book of Tea

“People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Source: The Book of Tea

“Tea… is a religion of the art of life.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Source: The Book of Tea

“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.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Source: The Book of Tea

“Let us dream of evanescence, and linger in the beautiful foolishness of things.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Source: The Book of Tea

“Translation is always a treason, and as a Ming author observes, can at its best be only the reverse side of a brocade- all the threads are there, but not the subtlety of colour or design.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Source: The Book of Tea

“True beauty could be discovered only by one who mentally complete the incomplete.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Source: The Book of Tea

“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 social order.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

The Book of Tea. Kakuzo Okakura, in Green Gold: The Empire of Tea (30 November 2011) http://books.google.co.in/books?id=4SCZJFFf6ZsC&pg=PT64, p. 64.

“It (Teaism) is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

The Book of Tea

“Tea is a work of art and needs a master hand to bring out its noblest qualities.”

Kakuzo Okakura book The Book of Tea

Kakuzō Okakura, The Book of Tea (1906), Ch. II.

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