Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries, She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf, Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.
His form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appear'd Less than archangel ruin'd, and th' excess Of glory obscur'd.
Arms on armour clashing bray'd Horrible discord, and the madding wheels Of brazen chariots rag'd: dire was the noise Of conflict.
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.
O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere.
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, And daffodillies fill their cups with tears, To strew the laureate to hearse when Lycid lies.
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise. That last infirmity of noble mind. To scorn delights, and live laborious days.
The government, the state, they're just objects of jokes rather than serious consideration. I can't possibly take them seriously.
Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a 'read,' commits an anthropological crime, in the first place against himself.
Yevtushenko is a high member of his country's establishment, and he lies terribly about the United States to his Russian readers.
By middle school, I said to myself that it's time I begin to speak. I joined the choir, not because I wanted to. I forced myself.
Reading and thoughtfulness and openness are the best way, I should think, to begin to address the richness that is in each of us.
That a little child will lead us back to the child we will always be, vulnerable and wanting and hurting for love and for beauty.
Sometimes we become so sophisticated we have to read the New York Times in order to figure out whether it's a hot or a rainy day.
The abject pleasure of an abject mind And hence so dear to poor weak woman kind. [Lat., Vindicta Nemo magis gaudet, quam femina.]
God, provide me with enough sustenance that my family is taken care of, that neither I remain hungry, nor does my guest go unfed.
The body, what is it, Father, but a sign To love the force that grows us, to give back What in Thy palm is senselessness and mud?
All artists are self-sacrificing human beings, and to become an artist is nothing but to devote oneself to the subterranean gods.
They say: 'If a man knew himself, he would know all mankind.' I say: 'If a man loved mankind, he would know something of himself.
The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.
Given our examination of the behavior of our police forces at this moment the question of protection has an extra resonance, yes?
Colors are the smiles of Nature. When they are extremely smiling, and break forth into other beauty besides, they are her laughs.
Whatever people in general do not understand, they are al ways prepared to dislike; the incomprehensible is always the obnoxious.
Innocence of heart and violence of feeling are necessary in any kind of superior achievement: The arts cannot exist without them.
The happiest woman sees not gladness alone reflected from her mirror; its surface will inevitably be sometimes dimmed with sighs.
I've been told not to tour down in Mexico. I am too well-known now. The kidnappers may think that my publisher will pay a ransom.
The stars had only one task: they taught me how to read. They taught me I had a language in heaven and another language on earth.
At the very least we want a witness. We can't stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.
Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?
It doesn't really matter what "genre" your book is. What matters is that it's a good book of its kind. Whatever that kind may be.
The will to be totally rational is the will to be made out of glass and steel: and to use others as if they were glass and steel.
Men use women sexually. They use them, mistreat them, even from the point of view of vocabulary, the use of words. It baffles me.
repression, however, is not the most obvious characteristic of the sea; the sea is a collector, quick to return a rapacious look.
I, too, dislike it. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it, after all, a place for the genuine.
Wakefulness is not a destination but a song the human heart keeps singing, the way birds keep singing at the first sign of light.
We are love. But in an everyday setting we have to make choices. We have limits. We can love everyone and we can't love everyone.
The writing of a poem is, for me, in the first place, an almost total act of abandon leading to discovery leading to recognition.
Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.
the wasting of time is the most personal, most private, most intimate form of conversation with oneself, as well as with another.
We, peopling the void air, Make Gods to whom to impute The ills we ought to bear; With God and Fate to rail at, suffering easily.
There can be many different views of what Heaven is like, because Heaven is whatever makes each person eternally and fully happy.
Words are more powerful than perhaps anyone suspects, and once deeply engraved in a child's mind, they are not easily eradicated.
People who are always thinking of the feelings of others can be very destructive because they are hiding so much from themselves.
Family life! The United Nations is child's play compared to the tugs and splits and need to understand and forgive in any family.
Did evangelical Christians mistake Donald Trump's hairpiece for a halo, while ignoring the obvious signs that he worships Mammon?
Even Donald Trump's hairpiece is fed up with his insults and says it now supports Bernie Sanders. When Trump found out, he sobbed
The idea of wanting to do something that's completely natural and then having to repress it is something that I find fascinating.
While shepherds watch'd their flocks by night, All seated on the ground, The Angel of the Lord came down, And Glory shone around.
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.
When I remember bygone days I think how evening follows morn So many I loved were not yet dead, So many I love were not yet born.