Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The first poem I ever wrote, about loss, when I was 5 years old, expressed the themes of everything I would ever write.
...in the face of all dangers, in what may seem a godless region, we move forward through the agencies of love and art.
Living is the original art. As a young man I wanted to be a poet and I learned along the way that I already was a poet.
This I ask, is it not madness to kill thyself in order to escape death? [Lat., Hic rogo non furor est ne moriare mori?]
And now you'll be telling stories of my coming back and they won't be false, and they won't be true but they'll be real
There are some griefs so loud/They could bring down the sky/And there are griefs so still/None knows how deep they lie.
So in all humours sportively I range; My muse is rightly of the English strain, That cannot long one fashion entertain.
It shouldn't be a Republican or Democratic issue whether we take care of the environment. That should be a human issue.
Every political card played by Jeb Bush has been Trumped; every political note played by The Donald has been Trumpeted.
One characteristic of modern poetry is that arrangement of parts which strikes many people as being violent or obscure.
Poetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.
You cannot choose your battlefield, The Gods do that for you; But you can plant a standard Where a standard never flew.
In the darkness, who would answer for the color of a rose, Or the vestments of the May moth and the pilgrimage it goes?
The highest purpose of intellectual cultivation is to give a man a perfect knowledge and mastery of his own inner self.
Sleep, rest of things, O pleasing Deity, Peace of the soul, which cares dost crucify, Weary bodies refresh and mollify.
Seeking is all very well, but holding requires greater talent: Seeking involves some luck; now the demand is for skill.
What is harder than stone? What more soft than water? Nevertheless hard though the rock be, it is hollowed by the wave.
A man is most accurately judged by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or to reciprocate.
A poet's work consists less in seeking words for his ideas than in seeking ideas for his words and predominant rhythms.
True shamans live in a world that is alive with what is to rationalist sight unseen, a world pulsing with intelligence.
Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal.
It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other.
I never doubted my talent. If talent was the circus, then I was its ringmaster and audience, applauding its every move.
Various are the uses of friends, beyond all else in difficulty, but joy also looks for trust that is clear in the eyes.
Even if my strength should fail, my daring will win me praise: in might enterprises even the will to succeed is enough.
There is no doubt in the sanctity of Mecca, but a donkey won't become a Hajj pilgrim by just going through the motions.
Somewhere there is an ancient enmity between our daily life and the great work. Help me in saying it, to understand it.
What do the contours of your body mean, laid out like the lines on a hand, so that I no longer see them except as fate?
The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.
I try to show what it is about language and music that enthralls, because I think those are the two elements of poetry.
When a father, absent during the day, returns home at six, his children receive only his temperament, not his teaching.
It is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine at least.
Of power does Man possess no particle: Of knowledge-just so much as show that still It ends in ignorance on every side.
Dare to be honest and fear no labor. ... Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.
A remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
Our history doesn't look at our own violence, the violence in our own past, and we go out and repeat it someplace else.
I got interested in the question of literacy because writers are always moaning about why more people don't read books.
The Dawn is a wild, fair woman, With sunrise in her hair; Look where she stands, with pleading hands, To lure me there.
What can the dove of Jesus give You now but wisdom, exile? Stand and live, The dove has brought an olive branch to eat.
Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They're inexpensive and easy to procure.
Man hath a weary pilgrimage, As through the word he wends; On every stage, from youth to age, Still discontent attends.
guilt politics ... I regard as conveniently paralyzing, ripe for backlash defensiveness, counterproductive, and boring.
Time is of the essence, The crowd and players Are the same age always, But the man in the stand, Is older every season.
I want to be where your bare foot walks, because maybe before you step, you'll look at the ground. I want that blessing
Achieve some perfection [excellence] yourself, so that you may not fall into sorrow by seeing the perfection in others.
A lover in life will be a lover in death, a lover in the tomb, a lover in paradise, a lover on the day of resurrection.
Silence is the root of everything. If you spiral into its void a hundred voices will thunder messages you long to hear.
Would you become a pilgrim on the road of love? The first condition is that you make yourself humble as dust and ashes.
Ways of worshipping are not to be ranked as better or worse than one another . . . It's all praise, and it's all right.
Love is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end. Imagine, a suspended ocean, riding on a cushion of ancient secrets.