Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think of few heroic actions, which cannot be traced to the artistical impulse. He who does great deeds, does them from his innate sensitiveness to moral beauty.
Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death.
I thought Love lived in the hot sunshine, But O, he lives in the moony light! I thought to find Love in the heat of day, But sweet Love is the comforter of night.
It takes more courage to dig deep in the dark corners of your own soul and the back alleys of your society than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.
I thought it out this very day, Noon upon the clock, A man may put pretence away Who leans upon a stick, May sing, and sing until he drop, Whether to maid or hag.
Ah, why Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore Only among the crowd and under roofs That our frail hands have raised?
Words learn'd by rote a parrot may rehearse, But talking is not always to converse, Not more distinct from harmony divine The constant creaking of a country sign.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path. But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will turn aside and let the reptile live.
Heaven speed the canvas, gallantly unfurl'd, To furnish and accommodate a world, To give the Pole the produce of the sun, And knit the unsocial climates into one.
Life is a smoke that curls- Curls in a flickering skein, That winds and whisks and whirls, A figment thin and vain, Into the vast inane. One end for hut and hall.
I will be master of what is mine own: She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing.
We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror.
Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new-create another heir As great in admiration as herself.
That is honor's scorn Which challenges itself as honor's born And is not like the sire. Honors thrive When rather from our acts we them derive Than our foregoers.
Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
But say, my lord, it were not regist'red, Methinks the truth should live from age to age, As 'twere retailed to all posterity, Even to the general all-ending day.
The painful warrior famous for fight, After a thousand victories, once foil'd, Is from the books of honor razed quite, And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd
Pray, do not mock me. I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; And, to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind.
I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.
Grandeur and beauty are so very opposite, that you often diminish the one as you increase the other. Variety is most akin to the latter, simplicity to the former.
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will; Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!
I am a tarsier and a tarsier's son, the grandson and great-grandson of tarsiers, a tiny creature, made up of two pupils and whatever simply could not be left out.
The world of religion isn't a logical world; that's why children like it. It's a world of worked-out fantasies, very similar to children's stories or fairy tales.
Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease, and my fingers wandered idly over the noisy keys. It seemed the harmonious echo from our discordant life.
When I spoke, I was listened to; and I was at a loss to know how I had so easily acquired the art of commanding attention, and giving the tone to the conversation.
I wanted him [my father] to cherish and approve of me, not as he had when I was a child, but as the woman I was, who had her own mind and had made her own choices.
The more prose I wrote, the more the pendulum swung back toward the middle, merging some poetic sensibilities with the more fundamental elements of creative prose.
Is there a parson much bemused in beer, a maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer, a clerk foredoom'd his father's soul to cross, who pens a stanza when he should engross?
How loved, how honored once, avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot A heap of dust alone remains of thee 'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
Trade it may help, society extend, But lures the Pirate, ant corrupts the friend: It raises armies in a nation's aid, But bribes a senate, and the land's betray'd.
In lazy apathy let stoics boast, their virtue fix'd: 't is fix'd as in a frost; contracted all, retiring to the breast; but strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
Why did I write? whose sin to me unknown Dipt me in ink, my parents', or my own? As yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.
The pleased sea on a white-breasted shore-- A shore that wears on her alluring brows Rare shells, far brought, the love-gifts of the sea, That blushed a tell-tale.
Tis true among fields and woods I sing, Aloof from cities--that my poor strains Were born, like the simple flowers you bring, In English meadows and English lanes.
Oh for someone with a heart, head and hand. Whatever they call them, what do I care, aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, just be it one that can rule and dare not lie.
The day's at end and there's nowhere to go, Draw to the fire, even this fire is dying; Get up and once again politely lying Invite the ladies toward the mistletoe.
What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster!
So long as society is founded on injustice, the function of the laws will be to defend injustice. And the more unjust they are the more respectable they will seem.
It is when you are asking about something that you realize you yourself have survived it, and so you must carry it, or fashion it into a thing that carries itself.
Somebody who should have been born is gone. Yes, woman, such logic will lead to loss without death. Or say what you meant, you coward . . . this baby that I bleed.
It is an agreeable and yet a painful sense of novelty to stand for the first time in the midst of a people whose language and manners are different from one's own.
Reading, like writing, is a creative act. If readers only bring a narrow range of themselves to the book, then they'll only see their narrow range reflected in it.
When you put a poem on a Kindle, the lines are broken in order to fit on the screen. And so instead of being the poet's decision, it becomes the device's decision.
I've gotten stopped for reckless eyeballing, for staring too hard. These officers think they're Tarzan and this is a jungle, that all the animals need to be tamed.
I've just always loved animals. So I've often thought that if I weren't a writer I'd work for some nonprofit organization that does something positive for animals.
Confessional poetry is, to my mind, more slippery than poems that are sloppily autobiographical; I find the confessional mode much more akin to dramatic monologue.
there are worse things than being alone but it often takes decades to realize this and most often when you do it's too late and there's nothing worse than too late
But my whole life has been a matter of fighting for one simple hour to do what I want to do. There was always something getting in the way of my getting to myself.
Nature, through all her works, in great degree, Borrows a blessing from variety. Music itself her needful aid requires To rouse the soul, and wake our dying fires.
The stone is a mirror which works poorly. Nothing in it but dimness. Your dimness or its dimness, who's to say? In the hush your heart sounds like a black cricket.