Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure.
Affection faints not like a pale-faced coward, But then woos best when most his choice is froward.
If't be summer news, Smile to't before; if winterly, thou need'st But keep that count'nance still.
I'll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath; Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both.
Conceal me what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent.
So loving to my mother, That he might not beteem the winds of heaven, Visit her face' too roughly.
Every single instance of a friend's insincerity increases our dependence on the efficacy of money.
One in whom persuasion and belief Had ripened into faith, and faith become A passionate intuition.
The common growth of Mother Earth Suffices me,-her tears, her mirth, Her humblest mirth and tears.
Knowledge and increase of enduring joy From the great Nature that exists in works Of mighty Poets.
The fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.
Existence is beyond the power of words to define: Terms may be used But are none of them absolute.
Be courageous when the mind deceives you Be courageous In the final account only this is important
I would live the same life over if I had to live again, And the chances are I go where most men go.
This day's nothingness as if from spite became a flame and scorched the lips of children and poets.
But before we were mothers, we have been, first of all, women, with actual bodies and actual minds.
The absolute rule of the state shall be a function of the absolute liberty of each individual will.
As with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring out.
Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.
The Muse but serv'd to ease some friend, not wife, / To help me through this long disease, my life.
Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good-humor, which is as much a virtue as drunkenness.
The truly great rest in the knowledge of their own deserts, nor seek the conformation of the world.
The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.
For this is England's greatest son, He that gain'd a hundred fights, And never lost an English gun.
It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round.
The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction.
I had a moment of clarity, saw the feeling in the heart of things, walked out to the garden crying.
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstacy is holy!
Part of elegy is confrontation - not just with the idea of death, but with the person who has died.
I am writing more than I have ever done. My life has come back to me in the most extraordinary way.
It would never do for me to lose my wits in the presence of a man who had none too many of his own.
A man moves through time. It means nothing except that, like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.
O fallen angel, the companion within me, whisper something holy before you pinch me into the grave.
As a woman I have felt encouraged and fed by and nurtured by the work of [Jack] Kerouac and others.
It is good knowing that glasses are to drink from; the bad thing is not to know what thirst is for.
Human suffering, while it is asleep, is shapeless. If it is wakened it takes the form of the waker.
It takes solitude under the stars, for us to be reminded of our eternal origin and our far destiny.
Is there something we have forgotten? Some precious thing we have lost, wandering in strange lands?
Each for himself is still the rule We learn it when we go to school The devil take the hindmost, O!
I am the slave of my baptism. Parents, you have caused my misfortune, and you have caused your own.
Without charm there can be no fine literature, as there can be no perfect flower without fragrance.
Writing is the thing that sustains me and keeps me going. It is a form of self-preservation for me.
Henry James claim that if you want to be a novelist you should be somebody on whom nothing is lost.
I am not fighting for success, just to get more beauty out of myself and share it with more people.
I do that with all of my characters. They have one of the flaws I have, and I zero in on that flaw.
coming to the end of spring / my grandmother kicks off her shoes / steps out of her faltering body.
You will always be the bread and the knife, not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.
I have the impression that if he didn't complicate his life so needlessly, he would die of boredom.
As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world.
A pedestrian ought to be legally allowed to toss at least one hand grenade at a motorist every day.