Tea Ceremony Quotes

• Tea ceremony is a way of worshipping the beautiful and the simple. All one's efforts are concentrated on trying to achieve perfection through the imperfect gestures of daily life. Its beauty consists in the respect with which it is performed. If a mere cup of tea can bring us closer to God, we should watch out for all the other dozens of opportunities that each ordinary day offers us.

  Paulo Coelho

  Beautiful, Opportunity, Simple

  7 Copy quote

• In 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 Kakuzo

  Japan, Small Rooms, Perfection

  17 Copy quote

• When you watch a tea ceremony, every single movement, every single gesture is very calculated. It's very precise, and it's all protocol. It's all a part of the system. And it's almost like they've sacrificed every single thing to make that perfect. It's like their craft.

  Apolo Ohno

  Perfect, Tea, Watches

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Wabi means spare, impoverished; simple and functional. It connotes a transcendence of fad and fashion. The spirit of wabi imbues all the Zen arts, from calligraphy to karate, from the tea ceremony to Zen archery.

  Shunryu Suzuki

  Fashion, Art, Mean

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Art, Years, Practice

  Lafcadio Hearn (2005). “Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation”, p.390, Cosimo, Inc.

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• 

  A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Funny, Strength

  177 Copy quote

• Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

  Henry James

  Life, Tea Drinking, Coffee And Tea

  1881 The Portrait of a Lady, ch.1.

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• Archery, fencing, spear fighting, all of the martial arts, tea ceremony, flower arranging...in all of these, correct breathing, correct balance, and correct stillness help to remake the individual. The basic aim is always the same: by tirelessly practicing a given skill, the student finally sheds the ego with its fears, worldly ambitions, and reliance on objective scrutiny - sheds it so completely that he becomes the instrument of a deeper power, from which mastery falls instinctively, without further effort on his part, like a ripe fruit.

  Karlfried Graf Durckheim

  Art, Flower, Fall

  29 Copy quote

• I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do - the actual act of writing - turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

  Anne Lamott

  Writing, People, Giving

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.26, Anchor

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• You can either set brick as a laborer or as an artist. You can make the work a chore, or you can have a good time. You can do it the way you used to clear the dinner dishes when you were thirteen, or you can do it as a Japanese person would perform a tea ceremony, with a level of concentration and care in which you can lose yourself, and so in which you can find yourself.

  Anne Lamott

  Artist, Finding Yourself, Tea

  Anne Lamott (2007). “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life”, p.236, Anchor

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• Mapping out dozens of deeply focused trips around the world has convinced me that preparation no more spoils the chance for spontaneity and serendipity than discipline ruins the opportunity for genuine self-expression in sports, acting, or the tea ceremony.

  Phil Cousineau

  Sports, Opportunity, Self

  Phil Cousineau (2012). “The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred”, p.71, Conari Press

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• America's new tea lovers are the people who have forced the tea trade to wake up. Elsewhere, tea has meant a certain way, a certain tradition, for centuries, but this is America! The American tea lover is heir to all the world's tea drinking traditions, from Japanese tea ceremonies to Russian samovars to English scones in the afternoon. India chai, China green, you name it and we can claim it and make it ours. And that's just what we are doing. In this respect, ours is the most innovative and exciting tea scene anywhere.

  James Norwood Pratt

  Drinking, Names, America

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• Gun stripping is the tea ceremony of America.

  Steve Aylett

  Gun, America, Tea

  4 Copy quote