Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You get everything you could have ever wished for if you're willing to give that eternal bliss away to somebody else, to give it back.
A good poem is not completely a poem until it has received a critical response that grows out of the poem in an almost biological way.
Donald Trump just announced that if Republicans don't treat him fairly, he will resurrect the Whig party and run as its hair apparent.
My mother used to tell me when I went somewhere, "Please leave your foolishness at home." But how could I do that? It was stuck on me.
I test my bath before I sit, And I'm always moved to wonderment That what chills the finger not a bit Is so frigid upon the fundament.
The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex I think it clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile.
Another good thing about gossip is that it is within everybody's reach, And it is much more interesting than any other form of speech.
Wind feeds the fire, and wind extinguishes: The flames are nourished by a gentle breeze, Yet, if it stronger grows, they sink and die.
Nothing aids which may not also injure us. Fire serves us well, but he who plots to burn His neighbor's roof arms his hands with fire.
Thou beginnest better than thou endest. The last is inferior to the first. [Lat., Coepisti melius quam desinis. Ultima primis cedunt.]
Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs, - To the silent wilderness, Where the soul need not repress Its music.
And many more Destructions played In this ghastly masquerade, All disguised, even to the eyes, Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.
Lie bills and calculations much perplexed, With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint Traced over them in blue and yellow paint.
Go, grieving rimes of mine, to that hard stone Whereunder lies my darling, lies my dear, And cry to her to speak from heaven's sphere.
It is no great misfortune to oblige ungrateful people, but an unsupportable one to be forced to be under an obligation to a scoundrel.
Is there a place here for the spirit ? Is there time on this brief platform for anything other than mind 's failure to explain itself?
Poetic power is great, strong as a primitive instinct; it has its own unyielding rhythms in itself and breaks out as out of mountains.
And you suddenly know: It was here! You pull yourself together, and there stands an irrevocable year of anguish and vision and prayer.
I am a house gutted by fire where only the guilty sometimes sleep before the punishment that devours them hounds them out in the open.
It is well-nigh obvious that those who are in favor of the death penalty have more affinities with murderers than those who oppose it.
Tell Youth to play with Wine and Love and never bear away the scars! I may as well tilt up the sky and yet try not to spill the stars.
We saw a hole in the Chicago poetry scene that slam couldn't fill. I think a lot more can be done with the form than just competition.
Beauty! thou pretty plaything! dear deceit, That steals so softly o'er the stripling's heart, And gives it a new pulse unknown before!
Adulthood has something to do with not choosing any of the pure points of view, but living about half of what you really want to live.
God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her.
That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, lest you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture!
And inasmuch as feeling, the East's gift, Is quick and transient,- comes, and lo! is gone, While Northern thought is slow and durable.
Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone, Not God's, and not the beast's; God is, they are, Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.
Courage is the human virtue that counts most-courage to act on limited knowledge and insufficient evidence. That's all any of us have.
Freedom is slavery some poets tell us. Enslave yourself to the right leader's truth, Christ's or Karl Marx', and it will set you free.
In spring more mortal singers than belong To any one place cover us with song. Thrush, bluebird, blackbird, sparrow, and robin throng.
A voice said, Look me in the stars And tell me truly, men of earth, If all the soul-and-body scars Were not too much to pay for birth.
Leaves and bark, leaves and bark, To lean against and hear in the dark. Petals I may have once pursued. Leaves are all my darker mood.
He thought that I was after him for a feather--- The white one in his tail: like one who takes everything said as personal to himself.
Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes Is the deed ever truly done For Heaven and the future's sakes
[My poetry is] a way of coming to grips with reality . . . a way of discovery and definition. It is a way of solving for the unknowns.
September twenty-second, Sir, the bough cracks with unpicked apples, and at dawn the small-mouth bass breaks water, gorged with spawn.
What if angry vectors veer Round your sleeping head, and form. There's never need to fear Violence of the poor world's abstract storm.
The true one of youth's love, proving a faithful helpmate in those years when the dream of life is over, and we live in its realities.
Die happily and look forward to taking up a new and better form. Like the sun, only when you set in the west can you rise in the east.
Just as the heart becomes carefree in a place of green, growing plants, goodwill and kindness are born when our souls enter happiness.
Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.
The lamps are different, but the Light is the same. One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind, endlessly emanating all things.
The core of the seen and unseen universe smiles, but remember smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter.
The way to heaven is within. Shake the wings of love-when love's wings have become strong, there is no need to trouble about a ladder.
Body of earth, don't talk of earth Tell the story of pure mirrors The Creator has given you this splendor-- Why talk of anything else?
An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches with spire steeples which point as with a silent finger to the sky and stars.
The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols.
Without needing to be theoretically instructed, consciousness quickly realizes that it is the site of variously contending discourses.
The experimental poetry thing is not my thing. It's a programme of the avant-garde: basically a refusal of the kind of poetry I write.