Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
A good poet feels what his community feels. Like if you stub your toe, the rest of your body hurts.
If you aren't having no fun, die, because you're running a worthless program, far as I'm concerned.
Grieve not because thou understand-not life's mystery; behind the veil is concealed many a delight.
Surely the vogue of those twisted and contorted human figures must be as short as it is artificial.
Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all.
I always return to Paris, taking my selves along - past self, customary self, the self I never had.
If there is any truth to my parenting the dreamwork movement, it comes from the power of the press.
It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun.
The Nile, forever new and old, Among the living and the dead, Its mighty, mystic stream has rolled.
Let us, then, be what we are; speak what we think; and in all things keep ourselves loyal to truth.
I call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority.
Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish.
Chaos demands to be recognized and experienced before letting itself be converted into a new order.
A thousand times I was ready to regret and take back my rash statement - yet it had been the truth.
I testify to rainbow feathers, to the span of heaven and walls of colour, the colonnades of jasper.
The shame of fools conceals their open wounds. [Lat., Stultorum incurata malus pudor ulcera celat.]
Avoid greatness in a cottage there may be more real happiness than kings or their favourites enjoy.
I can never forget suffering and I will never forget sunset. I came home with all of it in my mind.
Carpe diem, quam minime credula postero. Enjoy the present day, trusting very little to the morrow.
Joys do not fall to the rich alone; nor has he lived ill of whose birth and death no one took note.
Whenever monarchs err, the people are punished. [Lat., Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi.]
Let this be your wall of brass, to have nothing on your conscience, no guilt to make you turn pale.
I never think at all when I write. Nobody can do two things at the same time and do them both well.
In all unbelief there are these two things: a good opinion of one's self, and a bad opinion of God.
When you argue with your inferiors, you convince them of only one thing: they are as clever as you.
Most poets in their youth begin in adolescent sadness. I find it more rewarding to end in gladness.
The story of any one man's real experience finds its startling parallel in that of every one of us.
I do not usually revise much, though I often cut, particularly the end or toward the end of a poem.
Poetry can keep life itself alive. You can endure almost anything as long as you can sing about it.
Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it's a miracle that we don't dissolve in our baths.
Each particle of matter is an immensity, each leaf a world, each insect an inexplicable compendium.
Three things characterize man: person, fate, merit--the harmony of these constitutes real grandeur.
Be neither too early in the fashion, nor too long out of it; nor at any time in the extremes of it.
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough for another thought in my head, I had this great idea—
Praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers.
Language has not the power to speak what love indites: The soul lies buried in the ink that writes.
The sun must not set upon anger, much less will I let the sun set upon the anger of God towards me.
Doubt wisely; in strange way To stand inquiring right, is not to stray; To sleep, or run wrong, is.
Damn'd neuters, in their middle way of steering, Are neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring.
The intoxication of anger, like that of the grape, shows us to others, but hides us from ourselves.
One hand washeth another, both the face. [Lat., Una mano lava l'altra, ed ambedue lavano il volto.]
Envy's a sharper spur than pay: No author ever spar'd a brother; Wits are gamecocks to one another.
Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou livest, Live well; how long, or short, permit to Heaven.
There swift return Diurnal, merely to officiate light Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot.
Ere the blabbing eastern scout, The nice morn, on th' Indian steep From her cabin'd loop-hole peep.
Evil into the mind of god or man may come and go, so unapproved, and leave no spot or blame behind.
Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth.
Most scientific revelations happened after the pursuit of knowledge quit being secret and hermetic.
Abruptness is an eloquence in parting, when spinning out the time is but the weaving of new sorrow.
In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface.