Lafcadio Hearn Quotes.

1. "The Shadow-maker shapes forever."
- Quote by Lafcadio Hearn

2. "There is scarcely any great author in European literature, old or new, who has not distinguished himself in his treatment of the supernatural. In English literature, I believe there is no exception from the time of the Anglo-Saxon poets to Shakespeare, and from Shakespeare to our own day. And this introduces us to the consideration of a general and remarkable fact, a fact that I do not remember to have seen in any books, but which is of very great philosophical importance: there is something ghostly in all great art, whether of literature, music, sculpture, or architecture. It touches something within us that relates to infinity"
- Quote by Lafcadio Hearn

3. "Perhaps, after trillions of ages burning in different dynasties of suns, the very best of me may come together again."
- Quote by Lafcadio Hearn

4. "Eίμαι εγώ ένας;. Είμαι μια και μόνη ψυχή;. Όχι, εγώ είμαι ένα πλήθος, ένα ασύλληπτο πλήθος. Είμαι γενεά των γενεών. αιώνας των αιώνων. Αμέτρητες είναι οι φορές. που η συρροή όλων αυτών που είμαι. σκορπίστηκε στο άπειρο. για να συγκεντρωθεί και πάλι. ΄Ισως, αφού στο μεταξύ καώ. Επί τρισεκατομμύρια αιώνες. στις διάφορες δυναστείες των ήλιων. τα καλύτερα από αυτά που είμαι. θα μπορέσουν να σμίξουν και πάλι."
- Quote by Lafcadio Hearn

5. "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?"
- Quote by Lafcadio Hearn

6. "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."
- Quote by Lafcadio Hearn

7. "Βλέπω τα παλιωμένα σκαριά που φτάνουν από τα απόμακρα τροπικά λιμάνια κι ανεβαίνω μυστικά στις κουπαστές τους. Όταν ξεδιπλώνουν τις κατάλευκες φτερούγες τους για να πετάξουν μακριά από δώ, στο Νότο, η ψυχή μου -αυτή η ψυχή που έχω- τα ακολουθεί με τη σκέψη της. Κάποια μέρα θα κρυφτώ στον ίσκιο ενός πανιού, στην κουλούρα ενός σχοινιού και θα σαλπάρω για πάντα μαζί τους."
- Quote by Lafcadio Hearn

8. "[...] carpenter still builds according to Shinto tradition: he dons a priestly costume at a certain stage of his work, performs rites, and chants invocations, and places the new house under the protection of the gods. But the occupation of the swordsmith was in old days the most sacred of the crafts: he worked in priestly garb, and practiced Shinto rites of purification while engaged in the making of a good blade. Before his smithy was then suspended the rope of rice straw, which is the oldest symbol of Shinto; none even of his family might enter there, or speak to him; and he ate only of food cooked with holy fire [...]"
- Quote by Lafcadio Hearn

9. "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, Lafcadio Hearn's Japan: An Anthology of his Writings on the Country and Its People

10. "Now I, like that Chinese devotee, must confess myself a very ignorant person, and naturally unable to hear the conversation of Ants. But the Fairy of Science sometimes touches my ears and eyes with her wand; and then, for a little time, I am able to hear things inaudible, and to perceive things imperceptible."
- Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan