Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The mind of the scholar, if he would leave it large and liberal, should come in contact with other minds.
Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.
As the heart is, so is love to the heart. It partakes of its strength or weakness, its health or disease.
Faith and doubt go hand in hand, they are complementaries. One who never doubts will never truly believe.
My real self wanders elsewhere, far away, wanders on and on invisibly and has nothing to do with my life.
One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.
Human life is reduced to real suffering, to hell, only when two ages, two cultures and religions overlap.
I want to learn from myself, want to be my student, want to get to know myself, the secret of Siddhartha.
To nobody can you communicate in words and teachings, what happened to you in your hour of enlightenment.
Ah love is bitter and sweet, but which is more sweet the bitterness or the sweetness, none has spoken it.
Mark what and how great blessings flow from a frugal diet; in the first place, thou enjoyest good health.
Ah Fortune, what god is more cruel to us than thou! How thou delightest ever to make sport of human life!
He who has made it a practice to lie and deceive his father, will be the most daring in deceiving others.
A comic matter cannot be expressed in tragic verse. [Lat., Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult.]
Time will bring to light whatever is hidden it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor.
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.
I looked for the church and I found it in the world; I looked for the world and I found it in the church.
I am a genius who has written poems that will survive with the best of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Keats.
For life is but a dream whose shapes return, some frequently, some seldom, some by night and some by day.
I think one ages and one dates. I tend to have a good deal of difficulty in liking some of the new poets.
Nature fits all her children with something to do, he who would write and can't write, can surely review.
Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.
Sentiment is intellectualized emotion; emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals by the fancy.
Zen pretty much comes down to three things -- everything changes; everything is connected; pay attention.
One breath taken completely; one poem, fully written, fully read - in such a moment, anything can happen.
I am an atheist, I have no religious beliefs. And obviously I don’t believe in spirituality of some kind.
You see, the strangeness of my case is that now I no longer fear the invisible, I’m terrified by reality.
I wish I were with some of the wild people that run in the woods, and know nothing about accomplishments!
He submits himself to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion.
When you're doing poetry like mine that rhymes, it's very easy to sound like a song that didn't work out!
To know and feel all this and not have the words to express it makes a human a grave of his own thoughts.
God is so omnipresent. . . . God is an angel in an angel, and a stone in a stone, and a straw in a straw.
I am reading Jonson's verses to the memory of Shakespeare; an insolent, sparing, and invidious panegyric.
--then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
And in their motions harmony divine So smoothes her charming tones, that God's own ear Listens delighted.
For neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, except to God alone.
Be strong, live happy and love, but first of all Him whom to love is to obey, and keep His great command!
Let her (Truth) and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?
Or bid the soul of Orpheus sing Such notes as, warbled to the string, Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek.
Yet beauty, though injurious, hath strange power, After offence returning, to regain Love once possess'd.
And, when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
Thrones, dominions, princedoms, virtues, powers-- If these magnific titles yet remain Not merely titular.
The liberty of conscience, which above all other things ought to be to all men dearest and most precious.
No command of art, No toil, can help you hear; Earth's minstrelsy falls clear But on the listening heart.
It's a maddening thing in itself to look at an old poem of yours. To translate it is even more maddening.
But grant the wrath of Heaven be great, 'tis slow. [Lat., Ut sit magna tamen certe lenta ira deorum est.]
The external forces conceal from the eyes the deep meaning of existence; True faith resides in the heart.
It's all so beautiful . . . the spring . . . and books and music and fires. . . . Why aren't they enough?
Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manifestation of nature agree to find new shapes.
The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.