Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I tried to put a bird in a cage. O fool that I am! For the bird was Truth. Sing merrily, Truth: I tried to put Truth in a cage!
we, in that instant, lost, breathless to be witnesses, as if we stood ourselves refreshed among the shining fauna of that fire.
But oars alone can ne'er prevail To reach the distant coast; The breath of Heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.
The earth was made so various, that the mind Of desultory man, studious of change, And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
We bear our shades about us; self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree.
For there 's nae luck about the house, There 's nae luck at a'; There 's little pleasure in the house When our gudeman 's awa'.
A mighty power and stronger Man from his throne has hurled,For the hand that rocks the cradle Is the hand that rules the world.
Grace me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle; I am no traitor's uncle, and that word "grace" In an ungracious mouth is but profane.
Poor and content, is rich and rich enough; But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter, To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.
Where shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly 's done, when the battle 's lost and won
The teeming Autumn big with rich increase, bearing the wanton burden of the prime like widowed wombs after their lords decease.
That is my home of love: if I have ranged, Like him that travels I return again, Just to the time, not with the time exchanged.
Forever, and forever, farewell, Cassius! If we do meet again, why, we shall smile; If not, why then this parting was well made.
Come, Let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me All my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more. Let's mock the midnight bell.
I have been long a sleeper; but I trust My absence doth neglect no great design Which by my presence might have been concluded.
This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o-erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.
There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple. If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with't
This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons peas; And utters it again when God doth please: He is wit's pedler; and retails his wares.
And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony? What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish Cut with her golden oars the silver stream And greedily devour the treacherous bait.
'Twas merry when You wagered on your angling, when your diver Did hang a salt fish on his hook, which he With fervency drew up.
You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.
I heard a bird congratulating itself all day for being a jay. Nobody cared. But it was glad all over again, and said so, again.
I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.
The clouds that gather round the setting sun, Do take a sober colouring from an eye, That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality.
The eye— it cannot choose but see; we cannot bid the ear be still; our bodies feel, where'er they be, against or with our will.
The test of a good letter is a very simple one. If one seems to hear the other person talking as one reads, it is a good letter.
Once every five hundred years or so, a summary statement about poetry comes along that we can't imagine ourselves living without
One by one the sands are flowing, One by one the moments fall; Some are coming, some are going; Do not strive to grasp them all.
I use rock and jazz and blues rhythms because I love that music. I hope my poetry has a relationship with good-time rock'n roll.
The greatest advantage I know of being thought a wit by the world is, that it gives one the greater freedom of playing the fool.
Ah, Christ, that it were possible, For one short hour to see The souls we loved, that they might tell us What and where they be.
But for the unquiet heart and brain A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotics numbing pain.
Cricket, however, has more in it than mere efficiency. There is something called the spirit of cricket, which cannot be defined.
Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.
If you want to make order, put your own heart in order, and, having put one's heart in order, one can regulate the family order.
I ought not to fear to survive my own people so long as there are men in the world; for there are always some whom one can love.
Ye country comets, that portend No war, nor prince's funeral, Shining unto no higher end Than to presage the grasses fall. . . .
Many of the poets I most admire have a way of embodying their peculiar obsessions via landscape that can sometimes seem magical.
You can get used to eating breakfast with a man in a fedora. You can get used to anything, my mother was in the habit of saying.
Women tell time by the body. They are like clocks. They are always fastened to the earth, listening for its small animal noises.
My great day came and went, I do not know how. Because it did not pass through dawn when it came, nor through dusk when it went.
We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams... Yet we are the movers and shakers of the world for ever, it seems.
The wind is rising on the sea,The windy white foam-dancers leap;And the sea moans uneasily,And turns to sleep, and cannot sleep.
A place has almost the shyness of a person, with strangers; and its secret is not to be surprised by a too direct interrogation.
Our life is our own to-day, to-morrow you will be dust, a shade, and a tale that is told. Live mindful of death; the hour flies.
Could one live on the sense of beauty alone, exempt from the necessity of 'creature comforts,' a sea-voyage would be delightful.
For the villainy of the world is great, and a man has to run his legs off to keep them from being stolen out fom underneath him.
I wondered if I was just the sum of my brain scan, little dots clustered in my frontal lobe. Is that where the poems came from?.