Quotes by Poets - Page 265

Humility is, in a sense, admitting how egotistical you are.
Criss Jami
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
Kahlil Gibran
The seed of every sin known to man is in my heart”.
Robert Murray McCheyne
Ah! I wish I had the courage to work for the debasement of my contemporaries. What good work it would be to defile their daughters: to insinuate something obscene into the infantile hands which caress each paternal beard and cheek; to poison them, even at the risk of perishing ourselves; to do as those Spanish monks did, who drank death in order that they might persuade the French rabble which had violated their monastery to do likewise.
Rémy de Gourmont
I would like people to remember of me, howinexhaustible was her mindfulness.
Mary Oliver
Where the human knowledge ends, God's wisdom and power begins to manifest in abundance.
Gugu Mona
Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He was still experimenting with kissing girls even though he said he'd rather be kissing boys. That's exactly what he said. I didn't know exactly what to think about that, but Dante was going to be Dante and it I was going to be his friend, I would just have to learn to be okay with it.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
Kahlil Gibran
Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember nothing stays the same for long, not even pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.
May Sarton
...That insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life.
Robert Louis Stevenson
God, in the dream, illumined the animal's brutishness and he understood the reasons, and accepted his destiny; but when he awoke there was only a dark resignation, a valiant ignorance, for the machinery of the world is far too complex for the simplicity of a wild beast.Years later, Dante was dying in Ravenna, as unjustified and as lonely as any other man. In a dream, God declared to him the secret purpose of his life and work; Dante, in wonderment, knew at last who and what he was and blessed the bitterness of his life....upon waking, he felt that he had received and lost an infinite thing, something that he would not be able to recuperate or even glimpse, for the machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of a man.
Jorge Luis Borges
Although it was only six o'clock, the night was already dark. The fog, made thicker by its proximity to the Seine, blurred every detail with its ragged veils, punctured at various distances by the reddish glow of lanterns and bars of light escaping from illuminated windows. The road was soaked with rain and glittered under the street-lamps, like a lake reflecting strings of lights. A bitter wind, heavy with icy particles, whipped at my face, its howling forming the high notes of a symphony whose bass was played by swollen waves crashing into the piers of the bridges below. The evening lacked none of winter's rough poetry.
Théophile Gautier
Om is that God of love. Like a loving mother Om cleans us of our clutters collected through many incarnations.
Banani Ray
When we are only victorious over small things, it leaves us feeling small.
Rainer Maria Rilke
What art thou Faustus, but a man condemned to die?
Christopher Marlowe
What could women accomplish if they did not have to continually mind their skirts, keep them from dragging in the mud or getting trampled on the steps of an omnibus? If they had pockets! With pockets, women could conquer the world!
Theodora Goss
Mulled ale for the frozen man,And mulled ale for the weary:For mulled ale is the body's friendAnd makes the sick heart merry.
Frans G. Bengtsson
From her thighs, she gives you lifeAnd how you treat she who gives you lifeShows how much you value the life given to you by the Creator.And from seed to dustThere is ONE soul above all others --That you must always show patience, respect, and trustAnd this woman is your mother.And when your soul departs your bodyAnd your deeds are weighed against the featherThere is only one soul who can save yoursAnd this woman is your mother.And when the heart of the universeAsks her hair and mind,Whether you were gentle and kind to herHer heart will be forced to remain silentAnd her hair will speak freely as a separate entity,Very much like the seaweed in the sea --It will reveal all that it has heard and seen.This woman whose heart has seen yours,First before anybody else in the world,And whose womb had opened the doorFor your eyes to experience light and more --Is your very own MOTHER.So, no matter whether your mother has been cruel,Manipulative, abusive, mentally sick, or simply childishHow you treat her is the ultimate test.If she misguides you, forgive her and show her the right wayWith simple wisdom, gentleness, and kindness.And always remember,That the queen in the Creator's kingdom,Who sits on the throne of all existence,Is exactly the same as in yours.And her name is,THE DIVINE MOTHER.
Suzy Kassem
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
Kahlil Gibran
Every man is the craftsman of his future, whether he hone it himself or allow fate do it.
Ogwo David Emenike
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
E.E. Cummings
Some mysterious revenge of nature has seen to it that no poem in praise of drink or tobacco (or snuff, if any) can succeed.
Kingsley Amis
I have a friend who feels sometimes that the world is hostile to human life--he says it chills us and kills us. But how could we be were it not for this planet that provided our very shape? Two conditions--gravity and a livable temperature range between freezing and boiling--have given us fluids and flesh. The trees we climb and the ground we walk on have given us five fingers and toes. The "place" (from the root plat, broad, spreading, flat) gave us far-seeing eyes, the streams and breezes gave us versatile tongues and whorly ears. The land gave us a stride, and the lake a dive. The amazement gave us our kind of mind. We should be thankful for that, and take nature's stricter lessons with some grace.
Gary Snyder
WHAT PEOPLE MAY THINKSome people cowerand wince and shrink,owing to fear ofwhat people may think.There is one answerto worries like these:people may thinkwhat the devil they please.
Piet Hein
When you've been hurt enough as a kid (maybe at any age), it's like you have a trick knee. Most of your life, you can function like an adult, but add in the right portions of sleeplessness and stress and grief, and the hurt, defeated self can bloom into place.
Mary Karr
A business without marketing is dead.
Paul Cookson
For a lot of people, God lives in their Bibles and they open it when they feel He has something to say.
Stanley Victor Paskavich
We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our own qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection--which we have ourselves created.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One of the most effective things you will ever do in life, whether you care to or not, is set an example.
Richelle E. Goodrich
There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer who has to go into the streets is a writer who does not know the streets. . . when you leave your typewriter you leave your machine gun and the rats come pouring through.
Charles Bukowski
I think my thinking with my heartI act with my thinking from my heartbut I'm just a human being with a heart and not a rational thinker
Kristian Goldmund Aumann
O, she's warm!If this be magic, let it be an artLawful as eating.
William Shakespeare
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings Conquer all mysteries by rule and line Empty the haunted air the gnomed mine -Unweave a rainbow.
John Keats
The glass bottle does not know its own contents. It has no idea whether it is a vessel for the most delicious apple cider, a lovingly crafted wine, or a bitter poison.
Lang Leav
Amor"So many days, oh so many daysseeing you so tangible and so close,how do I pay, with what do I pay?The bloodthirsty springhas awakened in the woods.The foxes start from their earths,the serpents drink the dew,and I go with you in the leavesbetween the pines and the silence,asking myself how and whenI will have to pay for my luck.Of everything I have seen,it's you I want to go on seeing:of everything I've touched,it's your flesh I want to go on touching.I love your orange laughter.I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.What am I to do, love, loved one?I don't know how others loveor how people loved in the past.I live, watching you, loving you.Being in love is my nature.You please me more each afternoon.Where is she? I keep on askingif your eyes disappear.How long she's taking! I think, and I'm hurt.I feel poor, foolish and sad,and you arrive and you are lightningglancing off the peach trees.That's why I love you and yet not why.There are so many reasons, and yet so few,for love has to be so,involving and general,particular and terrifying,joyful and grieving,flowering like the stars,and measureless as a kiss.That's why I love you and yet not why.There are so many reasons, and yet so few,for love has to be so,involving and general,particular and terrifying,joyful and grieving,flowering like the stars,and measureless as a kiss.
Pablo Neruda
Tell me, what kind of functions does pain have when one is convicted to 100 whippings in Saudie Arabia? You claim pain has a function, I claim that's scientific rubbish. The only thing pain really does is cause an instant reaction that is not rational and usually quite erratic. The famous example of the hand in boiling water, for example. You say it proves pain has a function. But exactly because of the spasmic reaction lots and lots of people will drop the bowl with boiling water over their entire bodies causing serious burns. So what was the 'function' of this pain? Pain and fear cause confusion and trauma. If pain actually did have a rational function, chronic pain would not exist.
Martijn Benders
In the world of mules there are no rules.
Ogden Nash
Infancy is irretrievable. Its memories live underground. To what extent they return by stealth or are triggered by various catalysts remains an ongoing question.
Siri Hustvedt
Mere grimness is as easy as grinning; but it requires something to put a handsome face on a story. Narratives become of suspicious merit in proportion as they lean to Newgate-like offenses, particularly of blood and wounds...
Leigh Hunt
Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding,” Joseph exclaimed. “If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn’t there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?”The master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: “There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht - I can see that they already have begun.
Hermann Hesse
Neleus...The son of Poseidon!A birth that came from the mate of a god and a mortal woman.Not plain at all!So it was, when the gods love, mate as humans with humans!From such a union two children were born, both boys.Their mother placed them in a small boat, and dropped it into the sea.The sea loved and saved them, children of Neptune were anyway!The river itself is connected with the sea, fresh water with salt, the land and the sea..."The sea herself guided us like legendary heroes into this new place ..".It couldn't be differently.Children of the Gods aren't we, our race? Have similar origin and similar history! Could not abandoned us, prey and exposed, like the two babies?
Katerina Kostaki
Everything at some point has been declared the root of all evil.
Criss Jami
My turn shall also come:I sense the spreading of a wing.
Osip Mandelstam
Plot twist: everything goes exactly as planned.
Criss Jami
I would like The Discovery of Poetry to be a field guide to the natural pleasures of language - a happiness we were born to have.
Frances Mayes
Fear of death is worse than dying.
J. C. F. von Schiller
It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally.
Maya Angelou
And thus I wonder about so many gay men I’ve met since, pillars of the community, out to everyone else but Mom, who still refer to their lovers as something between a roommate and a valet. Just who is being protected here, and who thinks queer is wrong?
Paul Monette
In the last analysis, be always of whatever truth you would live.For fire flames but in the heart of a colder fire.All voice is but echo caught from a soundless voice.Height is not deprivation of valley, nor defect of desire,But defines, for the fortunate, that joy in which all joys should rejoice.
Robert Penn Warren
Every person under the sound of my voice is a soldier. You are either fighting for your freedom or betraying the fight for freedom or enlisted in the army to deny somebody else freedom.
Maya Angelou
... Now to die of griefwould mean, I'm afraid, to die belatedly, while latecomersare unwelcome, particularly in the future. ...
Joseph Brodsky
Childhood is a human water, a water which comes out of the shadows. This childhood in the mists and glimmers, this life in the slowness of limbo gives us a certain layer of births. What a lot of beings we have begun! What a lot of lost springs which have nevertheless, flowed! Reverie toward our past then, reverie looking for childhood seems to bring back lives which which have never taken place, lives which have been imagined. Reverie is a mnemonics of the imagination. In reverie we re-enter into contact with possibilities which destitute has not been able to make use of.
Gaston Bachelard
nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
But if you were to die ten times for him, you would not alter his destiny in the slightest
Hermann Hesse
Sibyl, what do you want?”“I want to live,” the Sibyl said, and her voice rang rich and full. “I want to keep on living forever and watching heroes and fools and knights go up and down, into the world and out. I want to keep being myself and mind the work that minds me. Work is not always a hard thing that looms over your years. Sometimes, work is the gift of the world to the wanting.
Catherynne M. Valente
It’s difficult for me to imagine the rest of my life without you. But I suppose I don’t have to imagine it... I just have to live it
Ranata Suzuki
A conscious human is driven by their conscience, not popular opinion.
Suzy Kassem
If you can't make ends meet, meet them in the middle instead
Benny Bellamacina
It's mind-boggling how many different worlds people live in on this one planet.
Richelle E. Goodrich