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Okakura Kakuzo

Okakura Kakuzo Quotes

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Famous Okakura Kakuzo Quotes

“The Philosophy of Tea is not mere aestheticism ... for it expresses conjointly with ethics and religion our whole point of view about man and nature. It is hygiene, for it enforces cleanliness; it is economics, for it shows comfort in simplicity rather than in the complex and costly; it is moral geometry, inasmuch as it defines our sense of proportion to the universe.”

MenPhilosophyWholeShowsUniverseViewsMoralComfortEthicsEconomicsMereComplexesSimplicityPoint Of ViewTeaProportionGeometryCleanlinessHygieneMan And Nature
Book:The Illustrated Book of Tea
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“Tea with us became more than an idealisation of the form of drinking; it is a religion of the art of life. The beverage grew to be an excuse for the worship of purity and refinement, a sacred function at which the host and guest joined to produce for that occasion the utmost beatitude of the mundane.”

ArtFormReligionProduceGrewWorshipFunctionSacredDrinkingExcuseOccasionsTeaPurityHostGuestsMundaneRefinementBeverages
Book:The Book of Tea: Classic Edition
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“The outsider may indeed wonder at this seeming much ado about nothing. What a tempest in a tea-cup! he will say. 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.”

HumansMayWonderTearsBlameCupsTeaEnjoymentInfinityOutsidersThirstSeemingTempestDrainedDregs
Book:The Book of Tea the Illustrated Classic Edition
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“In the worship of Bacchus, we have sacrificed too freely.... Why not consecrate ourselves to the queen of the Camelias, and revel in the warm stream of sympathy that flows from her altar? In the liquid amber within the ivory-porcelain, the initiated may touch the sweet reticence of Confucius.”

MaySweetWorshipFlowWarmTeaQueensStreamsWhy NotAltarsLiquidAmberIvoryBacchusPorcelainReticence
Book:The Book of Tea the Illustrated Classic Edition
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