Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The good he scorn'd Stalk'd off reluctant, like an ill-us'd ghost, Not to return; or if it did, its visits Like those of angels, short, and far between.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers, The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness and cold.
I think that what art can do is refresh our sense of justice, wake us up to what we've taken for granted in the political realm, as in the other realms.
The Water said to the dirty one, “Come here.” The dirty one said, “I am too ashamed.” The water replied, “How will your shame be washed away without me?
I am dying into your mystery, and dying, I am now no other than that mystery. I open to your majesty as an orchard welcomes rain, and twenty times that.
I shall desire and I shall find The best of my desires; The autumn road, the mellow wind That soothes the darkening shires. And laughter, and inn-fires.
If only we could touch the things of this world at their center, if we could only hear tiny leaves of birch struggling toward April, then we would know.
Nothing will change until we demolish the "we-they" mentality. We are human, and therefore all human concerns are ours. And those concerns are personal.
The genius of the Spanish people is exquisitely subtle, without being at all acute; hence there is so much humour and so little wit in their literature.
Ever hear that expression, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times"? That's what high school was like for me. Both of those - all the time.
... sometimes I can feel it, the way we are pouring slowly toward a curve and around it through something dark and soft, and we are bound to each other.
Their spirits and their visions are embodied in their craft. And so is mine. It's not Jane Saw Puff. But the clarity of Jane Saw Puff is precious to me.
This misfortune you find is of your own manufacture. Keep hold of what you have, it will harm no other, for hatred comes home to the hand that chose it.
In Chinese, the word for heart and mind is the same -- Hsin. For when the heart is open and the mind is clear they are of one substance, of one essence.
So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them.
I felt dumb and subdued. Every time I tried to concentrate, my mind glided off, like a skater, into a large empty space, and pirouetted there, absently.
I don't see,' I said, 'how people stand being old. Your insides all dry up. When you're young you're so self-reliant. You don't even need much religion.
Every man should follow the bent of his nature in art and letters, always provided that he does not offend against the rules of morality and good taste.
The thing that I've decided is, I don't want to be invisible, but I'd like to be transparent. I want people to see what I'm thinking and see through me.
I notice that students, particularly for gay students, it's too easy to write about my last trick or something. It's not very interesting to the reader.
I admired what my students were writing, but I think their improvement doesn't directly result from me but from being in a class, being with each other.
From toil he wins his spirits light, From busy day the peaceful night; Rich, from the very want of wealth, In heaven's best treasures, peace and health.
The bread I eat in London, is a deleterious paste, mixed up with chalk, alum, and bone ashes: insipid to the taste, and destructive to the constitution.
Society's dark hull drifts further and further away. It is this place - the place of our separation, our distinction - that much of his poetry occupies.
When you're a student of poetry, you're lucky if you don't realize how untalented you are until you get a little better. Otherwise, you would just stop.
Often the losing of a battle leads to the winning of progress. Less glory but greater liberty: the drum is silent and the voices of reason can be heard.
To pay compliments to the one we love is the first method of caressing, a demi-audacity venturing. A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.
There's an attraction to emotional clusters or hypocrisies or awkwardness. A desire to expose something or point at something that's already poking out.
Listen! If stars are lit It means there is someone who needs it, It means someone wants them to be, That someone deems those specks of spit Magnificent!
Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.
Encased in talent like a uniform, The rank of every poet is well known; They can amaze us like a thunderstorm, Or die so young, or live for years alone.
You can't be a poet certainly of my generation and not have deep in your animal brain the comment of William Carlos Williams, no ideas except in things.
A Poem does not grow by jerks. As trees in Spring produce a new ring of tissue, so does every poet put forth a fresh outlay of stuff at the same season.
Man was made for joy and woe, and when this we rightly know through the world we safely go. Joy and woe are woven fine, a clothing for the soul to bind.
Poetry fettered, fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry, painting, and music are destroyed or flourish.
I had this thought a while ago, "My darling cannot understand What I have done, or what would do In this blind bitter land." And I grew weary of the sun
Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully.
If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks, buttocks against the yellow drawn shades,-- Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household?
Actions rare and sudden do commonly proceed from fierce necessity, of else from some oblique design, which is ashamed to show itself in the public road.
For what is wedlock forced but a hell, An age of discord and continual strife? Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss, And is a pattern of celestial peace.
Omission to do what is necessary Seals a commission to a blank of danger; And danger, like an ague, subtly taints Even then when we sit idly in the sun.
Time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arm outstretch'd, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer.
But as the unthought-on accident is guilty To what we wildly do, so we profess Ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies Of every wind that blows.
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, Shakes so my single state of man That function is smothered in surmise, And nothing is but what is not.
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts- O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power So to seduce!
Oh, how this spring of love resembleth, The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all beauty of the Sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away
I cannot tell what you and other men Think of this life; but, for my single self, I had as lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself.
Were it good To set the exact wealth of all our states All at one cast? to set so rich a main On the nice hazard of one doubtful hour? It were not good.
And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world! Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once That makes ingrateful man!
This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away; go. They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.