Quotes by Poets - Page 264

Textbook intelligence is not true intelligence. It only marks a man good at memorization.

these "sometimey" feelings are welcomed to stay... reminiscent of ying and yang: they need eachother to help me get through the good & bad days

For many of our Greek friends a book is a final desperate attempt to fill the existential void when there is no one to talk to, nothing to do, no television to view, nothing in the street to watch and even the middle distance holds nothing to stare at. To be seen carrying a book in public, let alone reading one, is a mark of eccentricity or foreignness.

When the time has come, every leaf turns to face the sun!

Hope! of all ills that men endure The only cheap and universal cure.

When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.

Life has its enigmatic events, that can make it a mystery, or my misery. It all depends on how I view it.

I like Kindness it's something the Government can't tax and it's free to give away that will return to you some day

Out of the night that covers me Black as the Pit from pole to pole I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.

Son, I hope your opinion of your mother hasn’t lessened, knowing what you now know.”tGavin glanced up; incredulity skewed his eyebrows. His expression appeared both stunned and appalled. “Never, Father! I love her! It makes no difference to me where she came from.”tThe man nodded, a show of relief in his features. His large hand, soft in touch, went to brush a string of hair away from his wife’s peaceful profile. “Your mother loves you too, son, more than anything in the world. She worries about you, day and night.”tThat sentiment stirred something profoundly pleasant inside the boy. He grinned at the internal warmth it created.

I am a woman who understands the necessity of an impulse whose goal or origin still lie beyond me.

One man in his time plays many parts.

The following Discourse [on art, by Sir Joshua Reynolds] is particularly Interesting to Blockheads as it endeavours to prove that There is No such thing as Inspiration & that any Man of a plain Understanding may by Thieving from Others become a Mich Angelo.

...the values ascribed to the Indian will depend on what the white writer feels about Nature, and America has always had mixed feelings about that. At one end of the spectrum is Thoreau, wishing to immerse himself in swamps for the positive vibrations; at the other end is Benjamin Franklin, who didn't like Nature. [p.91]

Whether they give or refuse women are glad to have been asked.

Faithfulness: where faith is full of necessary trusts!

Every real thought on every real subject knocks the wind out of somebody or other.

Don't flatter yourself that friendship authorizes you to say disagreeable things to your intimates. The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do tact and courtesy become. Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them.

My ears hear colors and my eyes see sounds.

I do... to this day, think that success is being able to look in the mirror and know that I'm alright on that day. I don't believe I've made it–I believe that I'm making it. I believe that I've found my past so that I can live in the present, it's the most important thing to me. The books and the plays and the touring and the gigs and the speeches and the cash...it all pales into insignificance when compared with knowing that I didn't do anything wrong, and I'm going to be okay now.

Lust and the English make no sense to me.

Boys like it when you talk to them as if they were grown men—at least he always did when he was a kid—because they pretend that’s what they are anyhow, grown-up men, and they do it for their entire lives.

He thought of night coming on. He thought of the loneliness of tonight, this first night in the ground. This, he thought, was the moment when the dead must first feel truly alone. This was the moment when the dead, in loneliness, feel the first stirrings of the long penance of decay. This was the moment when the dead realize the truth: This is it, it will never be different.To be dead, he thought, that was to know that nothing would ever be different.

Chess is not just a game. It is a way of life.

It is but sorrow to be wise when wisdom profits not.

Can we be clear about who we are, what we want? Can we be fully present in our truth, and communicate that? Can we understand each other?

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley.

Like a splendid mosaic of myriad colors, she in all her hues of sensitivity would paint her feelings in your mind’s gray skies. She was the butterfly making you run after her. She was the Zahir, a mirage that transcended borders and time-zones.

We love because it is the only true adventure.

Consciousness is everywhere, let it fill you up.

If someone tells you it can't be done. Smile and humbly agree. Then go back and work so hard that you can prove them wrong equally as fast.

When I was foolish, I detested sagacity. I ate the fruits of my foolishness and ignorance. I thank God because I was once foolish. It was from my foolishness that I learnt and understood the true savour of sagacity.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough; And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted Than you are now.

Your mind, your words, your charm and your style are all the sexiness that I need in my life!

But what is woman? Only one of nature's agreeable blunders.

My biggest fear is forgetting why I fell in love with writing. My biggest dream is never allowing that to happen.

Poverty should first be addressed in the mind because even if you give millions to a poor person, until there's a change of mindset, they will still remain the same.

Die Einsicht eines Menschen verleiht ihre Flügel keinem anderen.

I see things in windows and I say to myself that I want them. I want them because I want to belong. I want to be liked by more people, I want to be held in higher regard than others. I want to feel valued, so I say to myself to watch certain shows. I watch certain shows on the television so I can participate in dialogues and conversations and debates with people who want the same things I want. I want to dress a certain way so certain groups of people are forced to be attracted to me. I want to do my hair a certain way with certain styling products and particular combs and methods so that I can fit in with the In-Crowd. I want to spend hours upon hours at the gym, stuffing my body with what scientists are calling 'superfoods', so that I can be loved and envied by everyone around me. I want to become an icon on someone's mantle. I want to work meaningless jobs so that I can fill my wallet and parentally-advised bank accounts with monetary potential. I want to believe what's on the news so that I can feel normal along with the rest of forever. I want to listen to the Top Ten on Q102, and roll my windows down so others can hear it and see that I am listening to it, and enjoying it. I want to go to church every Sunday, and pray every other day. I want to believe that what I do is for the promise of a peaceful afterlife. I want rewards for my 'good' deeds. I want acknowledgment and praise. And I want people to know that I put out that fire. I want people to know that I support the war effort. I want people to know that I volunteer to save lives. I want to be seen and heard and pointed at with love. I want to read my name in the history books during a future full of clones exactly like me. The mirror, I've noticed, is almost always positioned above the sink. Though the sink offers more depth than a mirror, and mirror is only able to reflect, the sink is held in lower regard. Lower still is the toilet, and thought it offers even more depth than the sink, we piss and shit in it. I want these kind of architectural details to be paralleled in my every day life. I want to care more about my reflection, and less about my cleanliness. I want to be seen as someone who lives externally, and never internally, unless I am able to lock the door behind me. I want these things, because if I didn't, I would be dead in the mirrors of those around me. I would be nothing. I would be an example. Sunken, and easily washed away.

Christmas ought to be brought up to date,” Maria said. “It ought to have gangsters, and aeroplanes and a lot of automatic pistols.

What a strange alchemy we have worked, turning earth around to destroy itself, using earth's own elements to wound it.

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhereI go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which growshigher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apartI carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

Think not of the fragility of life, but of the power of books, when mere words can change our lives simply by being next to each other.

Adversity removes the friends prosperity has harvested.

Let them obey that know not how to rule.

The attendance of that brother was now become like the attendance of a demon on some devoted being that had sold himself to destruction

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question.

Pavlov’s dogs will drool at the site of any food,So go ahead and ring the bell, Sing a classical song about it and Then advertises what sells

All problems, though appearing outside of you, must be resolved within YOU.

A poem can't free us from the struggle for existence, but it can uncover desires and appetites buried under the accumulating emergencies of our lives, the fabricated wants and needs we have had urged on us, have accepted as our own. It's not a philosophical or psychological blueprint; it's an instrument for embodied experience.

The woman is not just a pleasure, nor even a problem. She is a meniscus that allows the absolute to have a shape, that lets him skate however briefly on the mystery, her presence luminous on the ordinary and the grand. Like the odor at night in Pittsburgh’s empty streets after summer rain on maples and sycamore.

Those who are rich cannot see reasons for poor becoming poorer and those who are poor cannot see reasons for rich getting richer.

Awareness is Brahman. The absolute cosmic consciousness. When you are aware, you are connected with Brahman.

You dance inside my chest,where no one sees you,but sometimes I do, and thatsight becomes this art.

The DreamLord ByronOur life is twofold; Sleep hath its own world,A boundary between the things misnamedDeath and existence: Sleep hath its own world,And a wide realm of wild reality,And dreams in their development have breath,And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,They take a weight from off waking toils,They do divide our being; they becomeA portion of ourselves as of our time,And look like heralds of eternity;They pass like spirits of the past -they speakLike sibyls of the future; they have power -The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;They make us what we were not -what they will,And shake us with the vision that's gone by,The dread of vanished shadows -Are they so?Is not the past all shadow? -What are they?Creations of the mind? -The mind can makeSubstances, and people planets of its ownWith beings brighter than have been, and giveA breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.I would recall a vision which I dreamedPerchance in sleep -for in itself a thought,A slumbering thought, is capable of years,And curdles a long life into one hour.----------Il sognoLord ByronDuplice è la nostra vita: il Sonno ha il suo proprio mondo,un confine tra le cose chiamate impropriamentemorte e esistenza: il Sonno ha il proprio mondo,e un vasto reame di sfrenata realtà;e nel loro svolgersi i sogni hanno respiro,e lacrime e tormenti e sfiorano la gioia;lasciano un peso sui nostri pensieri da svegli,tolgono un peso dalle nostre fatiche da svegli,dividono il nostro essere; diventanoparte di noi stessi e del nostro tempo,e sembrano gli araldi dell'eternità;passano come fantasmi del passato, parlanocome Sibille dell'avvenire; hanno potere -la tirannia del piacere e del dolore;ci rendono ciò che non fummo, secondo il loro volere,e ci scuotono con dissolte visioni,col terrore di svanite ombre. Ma sono veramente così?Non è forse tutto un'ombra il passato? Cosa sono?Creazioni della mente? La mente sa crearesostanza, e popolare pianeti, di sua fattura,di esseri più splendenti di quelli mai esistiti, e darerespiro e forma che sopravvivono alla carne.Vorrei richiamare una visione che ho sognatoforse nel sonno, poiché in sé un pensiero,un pensiero assopito, racchiude anni,e in un'ora condensa una lunga vita.

We tell the dead to rest in peace, when we should worry about the living to live in peace.

History dressed up in the glow of love’s kiss turned grief into beauty.

At the end of the day, I do not care how many Democrats or Republicans are in office. What I do care about is whether our leader is truly serving THE PEOPLE or only his/her own pockets. Is our leader in tune with the concerns and needs of the man on the street - or only issues concerning private interests? Is this leader uniting or dividing the country? Milking or contributing to it? Building and preserving it -- or bringing it all down?

They do not love that do not show their love.