Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Listen how they say your name. If they can't say that right, there's no way they're going to know how to treat you proper, neither.
Ambition is a meteor-gleam; Fame a restless airy dream; Pleasures, insects on the wing Round Peace, th' tend rest flow'r of spring.
The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.
I wonder about the trees. Why do we wish to bear Forever the noise of these More than another noise So close to our dwelling place?
Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.
I do not cast my eyes away from my troubles. I pack them in as little compass as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.
I have no doubts that the Devil grins, As seas of ink I spatter. Ye gods, forgive my “literary” sins – The other kind don’t matter.
Hate generalizes; love specifies. Or: The movements of hatred are toward generalization; love's movements are toward specification.
I know of two tragic histories in the world - that of Ireland, and that of Macedonia. Both of them have been deprived and tormented
A flourishing, morally credible media is a vital component in the maintenance of genuinely public talk, argument about common good.
A lover is always accused of something. But when he finds his love, whatever was lost in the looking comes back completely changed.
The angel is free because of his knowledge, the beast because of his ignorance. Between the two remains the son of man to struggle.
If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.
There is a way between voice and presence, where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens; with wandering talk it closes.
If you have not learned to be a passionate lover, do not count your life as lived. On the day of reckoning, it will not be counted.
Plant the love of the holy ones within your spirit; don't give your heart to anything, but the love of those whose hearts are glad.
If you don't try to fly and so break yourself apart, you will be broken open by death, when it's too late for all you could become.
There are only three things in the world, one is to read poetry, another is to write poetry, and the best of all is to live poetry.
We go, in winter's biting wind, On many a short-lived winter day, With aching back but willing mind To dig and double dig the clay.
Whenever you argue with another wiser than yourself in order that others may admire your wisdom, they will discover your ignorance.
He who learns the rules of wisdom, without conforming to them in his life, is like a man who labored in his fields, but did not sow
There is in every human countenance either a history or a prophecy which must sadden, or at least soften every reflecting observer.
Though like the wanderer, The sun gone down, Darkness be over me, My rest a stone; Yet in my dreams I'd be Nearer, my God, to Thee.
Although I cannot see your face As you flip these poems awhile, Somewhere from some far-off place I hear you laughing--and I smile.
They put me in a holding cell with a black kid and a white kid and a Chinese kid. We're the United Nations of juvenile delinquents.
The poetry, if you will, of life is reduced to this sort of dry, scientific, you know, it's the worst sort of précis of who we are.
There isn't a lot of poverty literature in the young-adult world. And I don't know why that is, but I think certainly I felt a gap.
After the war I was going to make up for lost time. But the time I spent away, it's still lost. No matter what I do, it stays lost.
Unsuccessful emulation is too apt to sink into envy, which of all sins has not even the excuse to offer of temporary gratification.
You have to be able to make a real creative life for Yourself, before you can expect anyone Else to provide one ready-made for you.
One of the most important things that teachers teach students is you, you can work harder. You are mentally tougher than you think.
And the elephant sings deep in the forest-maze About a star of deathless and painless peace But no astronomer can find where it is.
If you were the sky, I would unfurl myself in you, as a rainbow of colors yet unseen. I would become oceans of stars in your night.
Any leaders who disappoint the people, ideals and promises by which they were appointed are by definition themselves dis-appointed.
Dear God! how beauty varies in nature and art. In a woman the flesh must be like marble; in a statue the marble must be like flesh.
Profound hearts, wise minds, take life as God makes it; it is a long trial, and unintelligible preparation for the unknown destiny.
Love resembles a tree: it bends under its own weight, deeply rooted in our being and sometimes turns green in the ruins of a heart.
A creditor is worse than a slave-owner; for the master owns only your person, but a creditor owns your dignity, and can command it.
The earlier works of a man of genius are always preferred to the newer ones, in order to prove that he is going down instead of up.
Marius was of the temperament that sinks into grief and remains there; Cosette was of the sort that plunges in and comes out again.
There is no distress so complete but that even in the most critical moments the inexplicable sunrise of hope is seen in its depths.
All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word 'no.' To 'no' there is only one answer and that is 'yes.
I definitely have favorite books by favorite poets, but poets' books also vary. I could like some books, but not like another book.
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
A craftsman knows in advance what the finished result will be, while the artist knows only what it will be when he has finished it.
The relation of faith between subject and object is unique in every case. Hundreds may believe, but each has to believe by himself.
Compare the silent rose of the sun And rain, the blood-rose living in its smell, With this paper, this dust. That states the point.
Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.
The mouthpiece of the half-inarticulate, all-suggesting music that is at once the very soul and the inseparable garment of romance.
Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.