Quotes by Poets - Page 291

What looks as a dead and dark end can become a glowing and shimmering start only if one has the patience to keep trying with positivity in the mind...
Neelam Saxena Chandra
Don't turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That's where the light enters you.
Jalaluddin Rumi
As you heal, you see yourself more realistically. You accept that you are a person with strengths and weaknesses. You make the changes you can in your life and let go of the things that aren’t in your power to change. You learn that every part of you is valuable. And you realize that all of your thoughts and feelings are important, even when they’re painful or difficult.
Ellen Bass
Cultivate simplicity or rather should I say banish elaborateness, for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart.
Charles Lamb
Is there a better method of departure by night than this quiet bon voyage with an open book, the sole companion who has come to see you off, to wave you into the dark waters beyond language?
Billy Collins
Nothing quite has reality for me till I write it all down--revising and embellishing as I go. I'm always waiting for things to be over so I can get home and commit them to paper.
Erica Jong
I hope to die with dignity and not be on my death bed pondering the afterlife wearing a diaper named Depends.
Stanley Victor Paskavich
For what's the use of talking with a man who has a disease and thinks about the stars?
Bertolt Brecht
Smoking will probably kill me, but so will natural selection.
Carroll Bryant
They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.
Hermann Hesse
Don’t ask a writer what he’s working on. It’s like asking someone with cancer on the progress of his disease.
Amy Lowell
There may be human joy in doing good with definite purpose, but they who do good expecting nothing in return know a joy that is divine.
Maurice Maeterlinck
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.You are the way and the wayfarers.And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
Kahlil Gibran
Regardless of your chosen faith, at the end of your life's journey, your heart will be measured in two ways. One, the weight of your conscience must far outweigh the weight of a feather. Two, any impurities in your heart must weigh no more than one feather.
Suzy Kassem
you tell me i am not like most girlsand learn to kiss me with your eyes closedsomething about the phrase - something abouthow i have to be unlike the womeni call sisters in order to be wantedmakes me want to spit your tongue out like i am supposed to be proud you picked meas if i should be relieved you thinki am better than them
Rupi Kaur
A strong gives forgiveness but weak gives permission.
Santosh Kalwar
Mentally I can die, Emotionally I can cry, Physically I can sigh, Spirituality I can fly. If I just try.
Stanley Victor Paskavich
Such a little thing really, a kiss... most people don't give it a moment's consideration. They kiss on meeting, they kiss on parting, that simple touching of flesh is taken entirely for granted as a basic human right.
Sarah Kay
Sour MilkYou can't make itturn sweetagain. Onceit was an innocent colorlike the flowers of wild strawberries,and its texture was simplewould pass through a clean cheesecloth,its taste was fresh.And nowwith nothing more guilty that the passage of timeto chide it with,the same substancehas turned sour and lumpy.The sour milkmakes interesting & delicious doughs,can be carried to a further state of bacterial actionto create new foods,can in its own rightbe considered complicated and more interesting in textureto one who studies it closely,like a map of the world.Butto most of us:it is spoiled.Sour.We throw it out,down the drain-not in the backyard-careful not to spill anybecause the smell is strong.A good cook would be shocked with the waste.But we do not live in a world of good cooks.I am the milk.Time passes.You cannot make it turn sweetagain.I sit guiltily on the refrigerator shelftrembling with hope for a cookwho dreams of waffles,biscuits, dumplingsand other delicious breadsfearing the modern housewifewho will lift me off the shelf and with one deft twistof a wrist...you know the rest.You are the milk.When it is your turnremember,there is nothing more than the passage of timewe can chide you with.
Diane Wakoski
I’ve been moving a little to the music while I worked …and then I realize I am actually dancing. It feels wonderful, though I can feel how stiff my muscles are, how rigidly I’ve been holding myself…Mostly I’ve been moving cautiously, numbly, steeled because I know, at any moment, I may be ambushed by overwhelming grief. You never know when it’s coming, the word or gesture or bit of memory that dissolved you entirely…It happens every day at first, then not for a day or two, then there’s a week when grief washes in every morning, every afternoon.
Mark Doty
Suddenly (like walking into a light you know) you discover this: the certainty that nothing is certain, the deep relief of your own incredible smallness." (From "Even If You Could Explain It Completely")
Adele Kenny
Those were all big words, to be sure, but as has been said, September read often, and liked it best when words did not pretend to be simple, but put on their full armor and rode out with colors flying.
Catherynne M. Valente
I know I won't live long. So I'm going to stand strong and not sit down in disbelief, hold my head up high and not waste my time wondering why my life has to be so rough and unfair. I'm going to strive and live everyday for the better until that day arrives.
Jonathan Anthony Burkett
(Conviction) is possible only in a world more primitive than ours can be perceived to be. A man can achieve a simply gnomic conviction only by ignoring the radical describers of his environment or by hating them as convinced men have hated say Darwin and Freud as agents of some devil.
John Ciardi
We have to start from the ground up and reconsider what education is. In my language, I'd like to see us educate the soul, and not just the mind. The result would be a person who could be in the world creatively, make good friendships, live in a place he loved, do work that is rewarding, and make a contribution to the community. People say that the word "educate" means to "draw out" a person's potential. But I like the "duc" - part in the middle of it. To be educated is to become a duke, a leader, a person of stature and color, a presence and a character.
Thomas Moore
There are people who think that Malina and I are married. We never considered that we might be married, that such a possibility could exist, nor even the idea that other people might think that we were married. For the longest time it never crossed our minds that, like other people, we appear as man and wife wherever we go. This was a complete surprise for us, but we had no idea what to make of it. We laughed a lot.
Ingeborg Bachmann
We were fair game but we have kept out of the cesspool. We are strong. We are the good ones. Do not discover us for we lie together all in green like pond weeds. Hold me, my young dear, hold me.
Anne Sexton
It is no wonder lesbians love women.
Gilbert Sorrentino
There are no keys to success - only tools.
Criss Jami
One if by land, two if by sea.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The watchful Mishmorat commented while waiting, contemplating Eena’s bare back. “Your people are so plain and pale.”“Oh?” Eena kinked her neck to look at Niki, zeroing in on her long spotted arms. Her bronze skin was arguably more striking—speckled in beautiful patterns.“I’m sorry,” the Mishmorat quickly apologized. “I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that I’ve never seen such bare skin before. There’s nothing to look at.”Eena quickly pulled the new t-shirt down over her back. She chuckled at Niki’s comment. “I’ll admit your people are very attractive. But I’m okay with my ‘plainness.’” She glanced over her pale legs before pulling on a clean pair of pants. “You’re kinda like a clear, cloudless sky,” Niki said, cocking her head wonderingly.“And you’re like a…..a sky dotted with shapely clouds.”“Only dark clouds.”“Storm clouds.”“Yeah,” Niki grinned devilishly, “That’s me—a sky full of storm clouds.
Richelle E. Goodrich
You are the one star I wish upon nightly, praying your glory will fall from the heavens and land in my undeserving arms.
Richelle E. Goodrich
DEAR DI­ARYYou are greater than the BibleAnd the Con­fer­ence of the BirdsAnd the Up­an­ishadsAll put to­geth­erYou are more se­vereThan the Scrip­turesAnd Ham­mura­bi’s CodeMore dan­ger­ous than Luther’s pa­perNailed to the Cathe­dral doorYou are sweet­erThan the Song of SongsMight­ier by farThan the Epic of Gil­gameshAnd braverThan the Sagas of Ice­landI bow my head in grat­itudeTo the ones who give their livesTo keep the se­cretThe dai­ly se­cretUn­der lock and keyDear Di­aryI mean no dis­re­spectBut you are more sub­limeThan any Sa­cred TextSome­times just a listOf my eventsIs holi­er than the Bill of RightsAnd more in­tense
Leonard Cohen
From castles of bone unknown music comes But now, that toil rewarded; you, your calculations,––you, your fits of impatience––are no more than your dancing and your voice, not fixed and certainly not forced, although an added reason for a double consequence of inventiveness + success, ––in brotherly and discreet humanity throughout the universe devoid of images;––force and justice reflect thedancing and the voices which are only now esteemed. The voices of instruction in exile... The body’s ingenuousness bit- terly put in its place... –– Adagio –– Ah! the infinite egotism of adolescence, the studious optimism: how full of flowers the world was that summer! Tunes and forms fading... ––A choir, to calm down impotence and absence! A choir of glass pieces, of nocturnal melodies... Soon, indeed, the nerves will slip their moorings.
Arthur Rimbaud
i always get myselfinto this messi always let himtell me i am beautifuland half believe iti always jump thinkinghe will catch me at the falli am hopelessly a lover anda dreamer and that will bethe death of me
Rupi Kaur
Some people are hard to forget, but some people are hard to remember.
Phil Volatile
Your hand can seize today, but not tomorrow; and thoughts of your tomorrow are nothing but desire. Don’t waste this breath, if your heart isn’t crazy, since "the rest of your life" won’t last forever.
Omar Khayyám
There is nothing noble about suffering except the love and forgiveness with which we meet it. Many believe that if they are suffering they are closer to God, but I have met very few who could keep their heart open to their suffering enough for that to be true. (124)
Stephen Levine
I went to the little window and inhaled the country air. One could hear the breathing of the night, feminine, enormous.
Octavio Paz
There is strength in numbers, yes, but even more so in collective good will. For those endeavors are supported by mighty forces unseen.
Richelle E. Goodrich
People reject what they do not understand because it makes them feel small. They would rather believe in some other reality, even if it is only an illusion, so long as it makes them feel bigger.
Suzy Kassem
A little man in a threadbare coat spoke up for the poor as if he really knew what he was talking about. The women with the flowers threw them down for him. “That’s Robert Speer,” one said. “Something like that. He’s our man.
Marge Piercy
Dreams have always expanded our understanding of reality by challenging our boundaries of the real, the possible.
Henry Reed
One day I asked God to move the mountain ahead of me, but he said no because he wanted me to experience the joy of being on a mountain top.
Gift Gugu Mona
Words are too awful an instrument for good and evil to be trifled with: they hold above all other external powers a dominion over thoughts. If words be not (recurring to a metaphor before used) an incarnation of the thought but only a clothing for it, then surely will they prove an ill gift; such a one as those poisoned vestments, read of in the stories of superstitious times, which had power to consume and to alienate from his right mind the victim who put them on. Language, if it do not uphold, and feed, and leave in quiet, like the power of gravitation or the air we breathe, is a counter-spirit, unremittingly and noiselessly at work to derange, to subvert, to lay waste, to vitiate, and to dissolve.
William Wordsworth
Love lives on propinquity but dies on contact.
Thomas Hardy
Ingredients to success: know what you do well, know what to do well, and know someone who's swell.
Criss Jami
I abandoned her. It's the one capital crime of fatherhood. Mothers can fail a thousand different ways. A father's only job is: do not abandon this child.
Catherynne M. Valente
The yard was a little centre of regeneration. Here, with keen edges and smooth curves, were forms in the exact likeness of those he had seen abraded and time-eaten on the walls. These were the ideas in modern prose which the lichened colleges presented in old poetry. Even some of those antiques might have been called prose when they were new. They had done nothing but wait, and had become poetical. How easy to the smallest building; how impossible to most men.
Thomas Hardy
No one lives in these regionsof rock and sun. It is a lucky part of the world; to grow old without buildings and roadways, to dissolve quietly without feeling stunned.
Naomi Shihab Nye
To hide feelings when you are near crying is the secret of dignity.
Dejan Stojanovic
When wiggling through a holethe world looks different thanwhen scrubbed clean by the wiggleand looking back.
Mark Nepo
Who can say for certain that he is sincere, who can say for certain that he believes? In the midst of of our deepest emotions we are acting a comedy with ourselves; within us one self is always mocking another self. - priscilla and emily lofte
George Moore
When the young womanleans over the sky,about to water the flowers as well as the weeds,her white front splits openuntil her milk runs.
Günter Grass
Who could have foretoldthe heart grows oldfrom touching others
Leonard Cohen
He moves in darkness as it seems to meNot of woods only and the shade of trees.
Robert Frost
To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive and the true success is to labor.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Beauty is dad kissing mom's hand when it cramps.Beauty is seeing a Persian woman dance.Ugly is not the absence of beauty.Uglyis the inability to identify it.The inability to be surprised by it.It is the persistent reluctance to be made a child by it.Beauty is simplythe manifestation oflove.
Kamand Kojouri
Call them from their houses, and teach them to dream.
Jean Toomer
A poem is its own name and cover.
Dejan Stojanovic