Tea is more than an idealization of the form of drinking; it is a religion of the art of life.
Okakura KakuzoIt is not the accumulation of extraneous knowledge, but the realization of the self within, that constitutes true progress.
Okakura KakuzoIn Japan, I took part in a tea ceremony. You go into a small room, tea is served, and that's it really, except that everything is done with so much ritual and ceremony that a banal daily event is transformed into a moment of communion with the universe.
Okakura KakuzoIn 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.
Okakura Kakuzo