Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You can meet a young person who goes to school and is really enthusiastic, but if a sufficiently strong personality convinces them that this is a waste of time, that person might flunk out.
Forgiveness is mental floss! Build the capacity to forgive slowly - start with little unkind acts, otherwise you'll sabotage yourself. When we forgive, we forgive the actor, not the action.
There are certain things that have universal attributes, like music. Something of greater magnitude is conveyed by them. They connect us with the universal storehouse of life and knowledge.
People of noble character are afraid of keeping friendship with dishonorable people. But people of discreditable character consider friendship with the dishonorable as a blood relationship.
Haste to thie kiste, thie onlie dortoure bedde.Cale, as the claie whiche will gre on thie hedde,Is Charitie and Love aminge highe elves;Knightis and Barons live for pleasure and themselves.
To contemplation's sober eye, Such is the race of man; And they that creep, and they that fly, Shall end where they began, Alike the busy and the gay, But flutter through life's little day.
There is no moral to my song, I praise no right, I blame no wrong; I tell of things that I have seen, I show the man that I have been As simply as a poet can Who knows himself poet and man.
Why is the word yes so brief? it should be the longest, the hardest, so that you could not decide in an instant to say it, so that upon reflection you could stop in the middle of saying it.
Dogmatic theological statements are neither logical propositions nor poetic utterances. They are ''shaggy dog'' stories; they have a point, but he who tries too hard to get it will miss it.
Comerado, this is no book,Who touches this, touches a man,(Is it night? Are we here alone?)It is I you hold, and who holds you,I spring from the pages into your arms-decease calls me forth.
With us, when you speak of ‘the river,’ though there be many, you mean always the same one, the great river, the shifting, unappeasable god of the country, feared and loved the Mississippi.
When the sun rises, do you not see a round disc of fire somewhat like a guinea? O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.
Florence Farr once said to me, If we could say to ourselves, with sincerity, 'this passing moment is as good as any I shall ever know,' we could die upon the instant and be united with God.
So holy writ in babes hath judgment shown When judges have been babes; great floods have flown From simple sources, and great seas have dried When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love's full sacrifice, He offers in another's enterprise; But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see Than in the glass of Pandar's praise may be, Yet hold I off.
Long as there's a sun that sets, Primroses will have their glory; Long as there are violets, They will have a place in story: There's a flower that shall be mine, 'Tis the little Celandine.
I think that to transfuse emotion - not to transmit thought but to set up in the reader's sense a vibration corresponding to what was felt by the writer - is the peculiar function of poetry.
That's a wonderful change that's taken place, and so most poetry today is published, if not directly by the person, certainly by the enterprise of the poet himself, working with his friends.
I am inclined to agree with the Head Master of Eton that pæderastic passions among schoolboys 'do no harm'; further, I think them the only redeeming feature of sexual life at public schools.
Do you know that charming part of our country which has been called the garden of France - that spot where, amid verdant plains watered by wide streams, one inhales the purest air of heaven?
William Blake cursed the flesh for a clod, Yet of some of his sayings we Moderns have heard tell: 'The nakedness of woman is the work of God', Or that title--The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
A book is a friend whose face is constantly changing. If you read it when you are recovering from an illness, and return to it years after, it is changed surely, with the change in yourself.
We are only midway through the central verse of our youth when we see ourselves begin to blacken. ... We had been seduced into thinking that we were immortal and suddenly the affair is over.
Why are all these dolls falling out of the sky? Was there a father? Or have the planets cut holes in their nets and let our childhood out, or are we the dolls themselves, born but never fed?
Watch out for love (unless it is true, and every part of you says yes including the toes), it will wrap you up like a mummy, and your scream won't be heard and none of your running will run.
If you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a short story in five pages. Furthermore, a short story is a perfect place to learn the craft
I was in an organization called Progressive Labor Party and International Committee Against Racism. And I was - I started out helping to organize a farm workers' union in Central California.
A lot of libertarians and ultra-capitalists like to put out this idea that competition makes for better creativity. But it's just because we don't see all the creativity that's been crushed.
I just look at music as a retreat from organizing. It's like a tug-of-war with me. Music can be effective, but it's not any good if there isn't a grass-roots movement going on to support it.
Gregariousness is always the refuge of mediocrities, whether they swear by Soloviev or Kant or Marx. Only individuals seek the truth, and they shun those whose sole concern is not the truth.
I've been melted into something too easy to spill. I make more and more of myself in order to make more and more of the baby. He takes it, this making. And somehow he's made more of me, too.
I think weddings are sadder than funerals, because they remind you of your own wedding. You can't be reminded of your own funeral because it hasn't happened. But weddings always make me cry.
... Kindness, sweetest of the small notes in the world's ache, most modest & gentle of the elements entered man before history and became his daily connection, let no man tell you otherwise.
How many years of fatigue and punishment it takes to learn the simple truth that work, that disagreeable thing, is the only way of not suffering in life, or at all events, of suffering less.
To experience real agony is something hard to write about, impossible to understand while it grips you; you're frightened out of your wits, can’t sit still, move, or even go decently insane.
And there I was, 225 pounds, perpetually lost and confused, short legs, ape-like upper body, all chest, no neck, head too large, blurred eyes, hair uncombed, 6 feet of geek, waiting for her.
I suppose like others I have come through fire and sword, love gone wrong, head-on crashes, drunk at sea, and I have listened to the simple sound of water running in tubs and wished to drown
I have a great advantage: I write from the perspective of my own voice. I'm not copying anyone's voice. It's my voice. I have the advantage of being a writer of English as a second language.
I think every person has a unique story to tell and we each have the different life events that happen to us and sometimes we may feel sympathetic toward a certain aspect of that life event.
Friendship is the holiest of gifts; God can bestow nothing more sacred upon us! It enhances every joy, mitigates every pain. Everyone can have a friend, Who himself knows how to be a friend.
Questions that have no right to go away are those that have to do with the person we are about to become; they are conversations that will happen with or without our conscious participation.
I still write what I need to write - but I can't deny that something has changed when I think about sending work out. Maybe it's just growing older and feeling more responsible to the world.
If you want a definition of poetry, say: Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing and let it go at that.
I went on all over the States, ranting poems to enthusiastic audiences that, the week before, had been equally enthusiastic about lectures on Railway Development or the Modern Turkish Essay.
The timid and fearful first failures dismay, but the stout heart stays trying by night and by day. He values his failures as lessons that teach The one way to get to the goal he would reach.
Those that were up themselves, kept others low; Those that were low themselves, held others hard; He suffered them to ryse or greater grow; But every one did strive his fellow down to throw.
Go little book, thy self present, As child whose parent is unkent: To him that is the president Of noblesse and of chivalry, And if that Envy bark at thee, As sure it will, for succour flee.
I've grown to love Barack Obama. Hillary is no Bernie Sanders. But she's a politician, and she understands Congress. And I think with that kind of twisted beauty, she could lead our country.
Certainly in the arts, in all genres, I think that men should step away. I think men should stop writing books. I think men should stop making movies or television. Say, for 50 to 100 years.
Bureaucrats are a pox. They are supposed to be necessary. Certain chemicals in the body are supposed to be necessary to life, but cause death the moment they increase beyond a suitable limit