Tea is more than an idealization of the form of drinking; it is a religion of the art of life.
Okakura KakuzoFain would we remain barbarians, if our claim to civilization were to be based on the gruesome glory of war.
Okakura KakuzoIt is not the accumulation of extraneous knowledge, but the realization of the self within, that constitutes true progress.
Okakura KakuzoFor life is an expression, our unconscious actions the constant betrayal of our innermost thought. Perhaps we reveal ourselves too much in small things because we have so little of the great to conceal. The tiny incidents of daily rouitine are as much a commentary of racial ideas as the highest flight of philosophy or poetry.
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