Kakuzo Okakura

The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings.

Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves, are apt to overlook the greatness of little things in others.

Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.

For 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.

Tea with us became more than an idealization of the form of drinking; it is a religion of the art of life.