Quotes from Lafcadio Hearn

A most extraordinary device for catching dragon-flies is used by the children of the province of Kii. They get a long hair, - a woman's hair, - and attach a very small pebble to each end of it, so as to form a miniature "bolas"; and this they sling high into the air. A dragon-fly pounces upon the passing object; but the moment that he seizes it, the hair twists round his body, and the weight of the pebbles brings him to the ground.

JAPAN AN ATTEMPT AT INTERPRETATION BY LAFCADIO HEARN

Even among the Japanese themselves, no scientific knowledge of their own history is yet possible; because the means of obtaining that knowledge have not yet been prepared,—though mountains of material have been collected.

the history of ethics and aesthetics,—all these and many other matters remain obscure.

New Orleans is a place that actually resembles no other city on the face of the earth, yet it recalls vague memories of a hundred cities.

As for the wine in the cups, it looked like water; but, as it tasted all right, what did its looks signify?

Well, for a considerable time after you were born, you had no such reason for rejoicing in your form. You were then a mere cabbage-insect, a hairy worm; and you were so poor that you could not afford even one robe to cover your nakedness; and your appearance was altogether disgusting. Everybody in those days hated the sight of you.

There is no loss-because there is not any Self that can be lost. Whatsoever was, that you have been;- whatsoever is, that you are;- whatsoever will be, that you must become. Personality!- individuality!- the ghosts of a dream in a dream! Life infinite only there is; and all that appears to be is but the thrilling of it, -sun, moon, and stars, -earth, sky, and sea,-and Mind and Man, and Space and Time. All of them are shadows. The shadows come and go;- the Shadow-Maker shapes forever.

Našao je zemlju izlaze?eg sunca pa je pšeni?no zrno, koje je neplodno, bacakano vetrom, najzad naišlo na grudu zemlje koja ?e ga primiti da uhvati koren i da se razvije.

Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become a study for archaeologists...but it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.

The Shadow-maker shapes forever.

The tea ceremony requires years of training and practice ... yet the whole of this art, as to its detail, signifies no more than the making and serving of a cup of tea. The supremely important matter is that the act be performed in the most perfect, most polite, most graceful, most charming manner possible.

But I confess that "my mind to me a kingdom is"--not! Rather it is a fantastical republic, daily troubled by more revolutions than ever occurred in South America ...

The poet or the story-teller who cannot give the reader a little ghostly pleasure at times never can be either a really great writer or a great thinker.

Perhaps, after trillions of ages burning in different dynasties of suns, the very best of me may come together again.

considering the possibility of being doomed to the state of a Jiki-ketsu-gaki, I want to have my chance of being reborn in some bamboo flower-cup, or mizutame, whence I might issue softly, singing my thin and pungent song, to bite some people that I know.

Nature has no consolation for us. Out of her formlessness issues forms which return to formlessness,——that is all. The plant becomes clay; the clay becomes a plant. When the plant turns to clay, what becomes of the vibration which was its life? Does it go on existing viewlessly, like the forces that shape spectres of frondage in the frost upon a window-pane?

If you see your neighbor's beard on fire, water your own. --Martinique proverb

I an individual—an individual soul! Nay, I am a population—a population unthinkable for multitude, even by groups of a thousand millions! Generations of generations I am, aeons of aeons! Countless times the concourse now making me has been scattered, and mixed with other scattering. Of what concern, then, the next disintegration? Perhaps, after trillions of ages of burning in different dynasties of suns, the very best of me may come together again.

Well dressed to-day; only a langouti tomorrow. --Mauritius proverb

Let those who want to hatch hatch their own eggs. ----Martinique proverb

Can we ever hope for a Natural History with colored plates that will show us how the world appears to the faceted eyes of a dragon-fly?

Spoon goes to bowl's house; bowl never goes to spoon's house. --Haitian proverb

Whoever pretends not to believe in ghosts of any sort, lies to his own heart. Every man is haunted by ghosts... thought most of us (poets excepted) are unwilling to confess the acquaintance.