Philology

306 texts on the shelf

Browse: Recently added · A text at random · By category · By kind: Proverbs and Maxims · Haiku and Poems · Zen Phrases · Scripture · Classics · Words and Phrases

Every proverb, poem and phrase we brush has a past. Here we show our work: each text followed from its oldest surviving record to the design on our shelf, with the sources open beside it. Read one before you choose a scroll, or read them because the stories are good.

Examples

古池や蛙飛込水の音 · furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto Bashō - The old pond, a frog jumps in, the sound of water It was printed in the spring of 1686 at the head of a contest of frog verses among his circle.

一期一会 · ichigo ichie Each Moment Only Once The earliest witness found for this study is the preface to Ii Naosuke 井伊直弼's tea manual, finished in 1858.

見猿聞か猿言わ猿 · mizaru kikazaru iwazaru See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil A manuscript of 1597 already keeps three monkeys named by the three negatives.

初心忘る可からず · shoshin wasurubekarazu Never Lose Your Beginner's Spirit Zeami wrote it in 1424 at the close of his treatise The Mirror of the Flower, as the one maxim his school held good in every art.

Recently added

平常心是道 · heijōshin kore dō Ordinary Mind Is the Way 17 October 2026 It is a Tang Zen master's answer to a pupil, and the nineteenth case of the Gateless Barrier of 1228.

放下著 · hōgejaku Put It Down 17 October 2026 The answer the Chan books give to the Tang master Zhaozhou 趙州 when a monk asked what to do once he brought not one thing.

一隅を照らす · ichigū o terasu Light Up Your Own Corner 17 October 2026 It is how the Tendai school reads four characters the monk Saichō wrote in 818 about who is the treasure of a nation.

千日の稽古を鍛とし、万日の稽古を錬とす · sennichi no keiko o tan to shi, mannichi no keiko o ren to su A Thousand Days to Forge, Ten Thousand to Refine 17 October 2026 It takes the word 鍛錬, hard training, apart: a thousand days of practice is the forging, ten thousand days the refining.

少年老い易く学成り難し · shōnen oiyasuku gaku narigatashi Youth Grows Old Quickly, and Learning Is Hard to Win 17 October 2026 Japanese schoolbooks have printed it for over a century as a poem by Zhu Xi.