Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Serene will be our days, and bright and happy will our nature be, when love is an unerring light, and joy its own security.
For oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude
Scorn not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.
Give me a land of boughs in leaf A land of trees that stand; Where trees are fallen there is grief; I love no leafless land.
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
One by one bright gifts from heaven Joys are sent thee here below; Take them readily when given, Ready, too, to let them go.
For now, poetry has the capacity - in its own ways and by its own means - to remind us of something we are forbidden to see.
Then as I turned seven, I gradually moved onto pastels and started painting on large canvases that were much bigger than me.
From a boy I gloated on existence. Earth to me Seemed all-sufficient and my sojourn there One trembling opportunity for joy.
Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one's conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.
Because no one has more thirst for earth, for blood, and for ferocious sexuality than the creatures who inhabit cold mirrors
Wit in conversation is only a readiness of thought and a facility of expression, or a quick conception and an easy delivery.
Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever, Here and there for awhile would borrow Rest, if rest might haply deliver Sorrow.
I like Patti Smith's lyrics, and sometimes think I could be influenced by them. But she has a kind of cool that's beyond me.
Film and TV are the most popular mediums in America. Literature and poetry are possibly the most under-recognized art forms.
There is an element in some of my work that has to do with being an outsider, feeling like not part of the dominant culture.
Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have left me.
That child whose mother has never smiled upon him is worthy neither of the table of the gods nor the couch of the goddesses.
Do we fear suffering or apathy most? Is it from experience or the monotony of a commonplace existence that we quickest flee?
Then God spoke to me and said: People say only good things about Christmas. If they want to say something bad, they whisper.
Suddenly I'm not half the girl I used to be. There's a shadow hanging over me . . . From me to you out of my electric devil.
The making of art is a profoundly social activity, even if it’s one-on-one with some sort of ideal reader who doesn’t exist.
How to sustain the miracle Of being, that like a muted bell, Or like some ocean-breathing shell, Quivers, intense and still?
Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.
Who built the seven gates of Thebes? In the books are listed the names of kings. Did the kings heave up the building blocks?
What rapture, oh, it is to know A good thing when you see it And having seen a good thing, oh, What rapture 'tis to flee it.
When I became poet laureate, I was in a slightly uncomfortable position because I think a lot of poetry isn't worth reading.
A lot of us don’t get a sense of our personal power. I know the vast difference that one person can make in changing things.
A lot of us don't get a sense of our personal power. I know the vast difference that one person can make in changing things.
Yet the order of the acts is planned And the end of the way inescapable. I am alone; all drowns in the Pharisees' hypocrisy.
What is so marvelous about living today is that it is possible to extend, like a flower, spreading petals in all directions.
The search for a new personality is futile; what is fruitful is the interest the old personality can take in new activities.
A love thought: I love you so much that I could wish I had been born your brother, or had brought you into the world myself.
Maybe it's better like this, better that everything should go up in a blaze of dry grass and that people should begin again.
Narrating incredible things as though they were real old system; narrating realities as though they were incredible the new.
The more one works, the better one works, and the more one wants to work. The more one produces, the more fertile one grows.
As a remedy against all ills - poverty, sickness, and melancholy - only one thing is absolutely necessary: a liking for work
The insatiable thirst for everything which lies beyond, and which life reveals, is the most living proof of our immortality.
The trouble with these people is that their cities have never been bombed and their mothers have never been told to shut up.
I can relax with bums because I am a bum. I don't like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don't like to be shaped by society.
They say that love is always blind and that explains so much, young lovers always seem so prone to use their sense of touch.
I've read in many a novel, that unless they've souls that grovel-- Folks prefer in fact a hovel to your dreary marble halls.
Forth in thy name,O Lord, I go, My daily labour to pursue. Thee, only thee, resolved to know, In all I think or speak or do.
Expand Thy wings, celestial Dove, brood o'er our nature's night; on our disordered spirits move, and let there now be light.
Where innocent bright-eyes daisies are With blades of grass between, Each daisy stands up like a star Out of a sky of green.
Bone by bone, hair by hair, Wild Woman comes back. Through night dreams, through events half understood and half remembered.
The people are fashioned according to the example of their kings; and edicts are of less power than the life of their ruler.
All day long and all night through, One thing only must I do: Quench my pride and cool my blood, Lest I perish in the flood.
Death cut the strings that gave me life, And handed me to Sorrow, The only kind of middle wife My folks could beg or borrow.