Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Uncommon things must be said in common words, if you would have them to be received in less than a century.
O foolish anxiety of wretched man, how inconclusive are the arguments which make thee beat thy wings below!
The splendors that belong unto the fame of earth are but a wind, that in the same direction lasts not long.
If you have too good a time writing hostile reviews, you'll injure not only your sensibility but your soul.
I believe that sitting naked across from your adversary in a steam room makes negotiations more productive.
Honesty is grounded in humility and indeed in humiliation, and in admitting exactly where we are powerless.
Beespittle, droppings, hairs of beefur: all become honey. Virulent micro-organisms cannot survive in honey.
And our dreams, with what frivolity we have pared them like toenails, clipped them like ends of split hair.
I am only one-eighth the writer I might have been had I contained all the fragmented languages of Trinidad.
To wish happiness for others, even for those who want to do us harm, is the source of consummate happiness.
Even famous poets such as Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams were rarely asked to read their poems.
There is no way to ease the burden. The voyage leads on from harm to harm, A land of others and of silence.
I like to have a martini/Two at the very most/After three I'm under the table/After four I'm under my host.
If you looked for things to make you feel hurt and wretched and unnecessary, you were certain to find them.
... Rebel against the flesh and bone, The word of the blood, the wily skin, And the maggot no man can slay.
The condition of the world today is such that most writers feel they cannot truthfully be "comic" about it.
I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day; I'd rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way.
Hot water is my native element. I was in it as a baby, and I have never seemed to get out of it ever since.
Men are egotists, and not all tolerant of one man's selfhood; they do not always deem the amities elective.
After all my erstwhile dear, my no longer cherished; Need we say it was not love, just because it perished?
Please don't think me negligent or rude. I am both, in effect, of course, but please don't think me either.
Where there had been only jeers or taunts at first, crowds come to listen with serious and sympathetic men.
I don't think poetry will die, but I think that poetry does demand a certain kind of attention to language.
It calls Devotion! genuine growth of night! Devotion! Daughter of Astronomy! An undevout astronomer is mad!
Two kinds of gratitude: The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give.
There are daily martyrdoms occurring of more or less self-abnegation, and of which the world knows nothing.
Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images, but it is also musical: it unites two arts into one.
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good.
The intellect is a very nice whirligig toy, but how people take it seriously is more than I can understand.
Strike-for your altars and your fires; Strike-for the green graves of your sires; God-and your native land!
I belong to this race, and when it is down I belong to a down race; when it is up I belong to a risen race.
Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers must do service and all talents swear allegiance.
The dignity of man into your hands is given; Oh, keep it well, with you it sinks or lifts itself to heaven.
My Grandmother standing wordless fifteen minutes Between rows of loganberries, clippers poised in her hand.
A woman findeth in her last lover much of her first love; but a man seeth his next-to-the-last love, alway.
Sports are never just sports, we all know that. You're always carrying the flag in some way, shape or form.
Health and sicknesse surely are mens double enemies. [Health and sickness surely are men's double enemies.]
If the wise erred not, it would goe hard with fooles. [If the wise erred not, it would go hard with fools.]
Wine is a turne-coate (first a friend, then an enemy). [Wine is a turncoat, first a friend, then an enemy.]
He that hath but one eye, must bee afraid to lose it. [He that hath but one eye must be afraid to lose it.]
If the Buddhist's job is to be detached, I think that the artist's job is to be both detached and attached.
Men do not so much hate an evil-doer, or evil itself, as they hate the man who calls evil by its real name.
The lucky thing was that I was Italian; when the other Italians saw me fight back, they came to my defence.
The world's a stage where God's omnipotence, His justice, knowledge, love, and providence Do act the parts.
Greatness is always built on this foundation: the ability to appear, speak and act, as the most common man.
Oh, they loved dearly: their souls kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss.
If a woman shows too often the Medusa's head, she must not be astonished if her lover is turned into stone.
Does not all the blood within me Leap to meet thee, leap to meet thee, As the springs to meet the sunshine.
Opinions mean nothing; they may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace or reject them.
How beautiful the world was when one looked at it, without searching... just looked, simply and innocently.