Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Still seems it strange, that thou shouldst live forever? Is it less strange, that thou shouldst live at all? This is a miracle; and that no more.
I just discovered when I was, oh, 12 or 13, that I was very interested in language - and this showed itself as poetry. There was no looking back.
It doesn't matter which leg of your table you make first, so long as the table has four legs and will stand up solidly when you have finished it.
The richer you are and the more financial advisers you employ, the less likelihood there is that you can ever discover what you are really worth.
If the crowns of all the kingdoms of the empire were laid down at my feet in exchange for my books and my love of reading I would spurn them all.
I am in no way different from anyone else, that my predicament, my sense of aloneness or isolation may be precisely what unites me with everyone.
Deceivers are the most dangerous members of society. They trifle with the best affections of our nature, and violate the most sacred obligations.
Listen, sweet Dove, unto my song, And spread thy golden wings in me; Hatching my tender heart so long, Till it get wing, and flie away with Thee.
Oppressed persons, oppressed cultures, tend to be more political, obviously, as are those with a rage for justice, or the crazy messianic desire.
While we are indifferent to our good qualities, we keep on deceiving ourselves in regard to our faults, until we come to look on them as virtues.
For April sobs while these are so glad April weeps while these are so gay,- Weeps like a tired child who had, Playing with flowers, lost its way.
God sent his Singers upon earth With songs of sadness and of mirth, That they might touch the hearts of men, And bring them back to heaven again.
Now to rivulets from the mountains Point the rods of fortune-tellers; Youth perpetual dwells in fountains, Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.
I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.
Love has no charm when Love is swept to earth: you'd make a lop-winged god, frozen and contrite, of god up-darting, winged for passionate flight.
We are more speedily and fatally corrupted by domestic examples of vice, and particularly when they are impressed on our minds as from authority.
A well-prepared mind hopes in adversity and fears in prosperity. [Lat., Sperat infestis, metuit secundis Alteram sortem, bene preparatum Pectus.]
I've never had the impulse for someone else to translate me into my own language. My impulse has always been to translate someone else into mine.
The Mormon mission to Africa, as to other dark-skinned parts of the world, was for a long time hobbled by the racism of the movement's scripture.
Sweet flower, thou tellest how hearts as pure and tender as thy leaf, as low and humble as thy stem, will surely know the joy that peace imparts.
Life is constantly weighing us in very sensitive scales, and telling every one of us precisely what his real weight is to the last grain of dust.
Evil is a far more cunning and persevering propagandist than good, for it has no inward strength, and is driven to seek countenance and sympathy.
I need more and more silence, it feels. Poems don't leap into my mind when I'm distracted, turned outward, with other people, listening to music.
Quoth the Ocean, "Dawn! O fairest, clearest, Touch me with thy golden fingers bland; For I have no smile till thou appearest For the lovely land.
The soul that feeds on books alone - I count that soul exceeding small That lives alone by book and creed, - A soul that has not learned to read.
What do I owe to my times, to my country, to my neighbors, to my friends? Such are the questions which a virtuous man ought often to ask himself.
Happy the heart to whom God has given enough strength and courage to suffer for Him, to find happiness in simplicity and the happiness of others.
Extreme patience and persistence are required, Yet everybody succeeds at this before being handed The surprise box lunch of the rest of his life.
I'm smiled out, talked out, quipped out, socialized so far from any being, I need the weight of mortal silences to get realized back into myself.
I am resolved to grow fat and look young till forty, and then slip out of the world with the first wrinkle and the reputation of five-and-twenty.
And close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood. And close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood.
And let these altars, wreathed with flowers And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden hours, The early and the latter rain!
Assuredly we bring not innocence not the world, we bring impurity much rather: that which purifies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary.
The delirium and horror of the East. The dusty catastrophe of Asia. Green only on the banner of the Prophet. Nothing grows here except mustaches.
Whoever it was who said that to philosophize is an exercise in dying was right in more ways than one, for by writing a book, nobody gets younger.
Flag of the free heart's hope and home! By angel hands to valour given, Thy stars have lit the welkin dome; And all thy hues were born in heaven.
Sometimes, I think, in order to get to something that we really want or we really love or something that needs to be realized, that we're tested.
They do not easily rise whose abilities are repressed by poverty at home. [Lat., Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi.]
Every gain women have made in the past two hundred years has been in the face of experts insisting they couldn't do it and didn't really want to.
Do not keep crying when your love has been gone. You only need Smile because he had been given you the opportunity to meet someone who is better.
Where are you now, my beloved? Do you hear my weeping From beyond the ocean? Do you understand my need? Do you know the greatness of my patience?
One might say that "Torch Song" is, in part, about the urgency of the effort to pin things down and what wild dart throwing that desire leads to.
I have a feeling I'm falling on rare occasions but most of the time I have my feet on the ground I can't help it if the ground itself is falling.
The future of publishing lies with the small and medium-sized presses, because the big publishers in New York are all part of huge conglomerates.
tears have a purpose. they are what we carry of the ocean, and perhaps we must become the sea, give ourselves to it, if we are to be transformed.
Telling about our lives is important for those who come after as, for those who will see our experience as part of their own historical struggle.
Before I joined the BBC I was, like most of the intelligentsia, prejudiced not only against that institution but against broadcasting in general.
The old must always make way for the new, and one thing must be built out of the ruins of another. There is no murky pit of hell awaiting anyone.
I defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough.
When 'The Hummingbird's Daughter' came out, there was a certain backlash - 'Well, this isn't 'The Devil's Highway.'' That's just the way it goes.