Quotes by Poets - Page 62

But the last one: the baby who trails her scent like a flag of surrender through your life when there will be no more coming after - oh, that's love by a different name. She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she's gone to sleep. If you put her down in the crib, she might wake up changed and fly away. So instead you rock by the window, drinking the light from her skin, breathing her exhaled dreams. Your heart bays to the double crescent moons of closed lashes on her cheeks. She's the one you can't put down.
Barbara Kingsolver
When life gets tough, just love it a bit harder.
Mounia Bagha
From too much love of livingFrom hope and fear set free,We thank with brief thanksgivingWhatever gods may beThat no life lives for ever;That dead men rise up never;That even the weariest riverWinds somewhere safe to sea.Then star nor sun shall waken,Nor any change of light:Nor sound of waters shaken,Nor any sound or sight:Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,Nor days nor things diurnal;Only the sleep eternalIn an eternal night.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
We spoke on the phone for the first time that morning. My back against the chest of drawers, my knees tucked under my
Lang Leav
He should be happy because he can think about the unhappiness of others!He’s stupid if he doesn’t know other people’s unhappiness is theirs,And isn’t cured from the outside,Because suffering isn’t like running out of ink,Or a trunk not having iron bands!There being injustice is like there being death.
Alberto Caeiro
A poem begins with a lump in the throat a homesickness or alovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
Robert Frost
I said, "I'll take the T-bone steak."A soft voice mooed, "Oh wow."And I looked up and realizedThe waitress was a cow.I cried, "Mistake--forget the the steak.I'll take the chicken then."I heard a cluck--'twas just my luckThe busboy was a hen.I said, "Okay no, fowl today.I'll have the seafood dish."Then I saw through the kitchen doorThe cook--he was a fish.I screamed, "Is there anyone workin' hereWho's an onion or a beet?No? Your're sure? Okay then friends,A salad's what I'll eat."They looked at me. "Oh,no," they said,"The owner is a cabbage head.
Shel Silverstein
I know you not quite wellYet I foolishly surrender my mind to you. Slowly and carefully you have cast a spellNow my virgin heart only longs for you. There is no need to push, I am already falling. Once proudly tall, I’m no longer standing. Knowing well that I am doomed to misery,I will roll the dice and take delight in my suffering.
Kamand Kojouri
To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.
François Mauriac
Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.
Conte Vittorio Alfieri
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,The proper study of mankind is Man.Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,A being darkly wise and rudely great:With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;In doubt his mind or body to prefer;Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;Alike in ignorance, his reason such,Whether he thinks too little or too much;Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;Still by himself abused or disabused;Created half to rise, and half to fall;Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,Correct old time, and regulate the sun;Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere,To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;Or tread the mazy round his followers trod,And quitting sense call imitating God;As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,And turn their heads to imitate the sun.Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule—Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!
Alexander Pope
True love needs no words.
Kristian Goldmund Aumann
Whenever you deny the hand of Justice, Violence almost always steps in.
Suzy Kassem
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding... And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy
Kahlil Gibran
I don't think anybody'd remember and certainly do know everybody'd lie. The reason I'm so bitter and, as I said, 'in anguish,' nowadays, or one of the reasons, is that everybody's begun to lie and because they lie they assume that I lie too: they overlook the fact that I remember very well many things (of course I've forgotten some...)I do believe that lying is a sin, unless it's innocent lie based on lack of memory, certainly the giving of false evidence and being a false witness is a mortal sin, but what I mean is, insofar as lying has become so prevalent in the world today (thanks to Marxian Dialectical propaganda and Comitern techniques among other causes) that, when a man tells the truth, everybody, looking in the mirror and seeing a liar......like those LSD heads in newspaper photographs who sit in parks gazing rapturously at the sky to show how high they are when they're only victims momentarily of a contraction of the blood vessels and nerves in the brain that causes the illusion...
Jack Kerouac
...The happy Warrior... is he... who, doomed to go in company with pain, and fear, and bloodshed, miserable train turns his necessity to glorious gain; in face of these doth exercise a power which is our human nature's highest dower: controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves of their bad influence, and their good receives: by objects, which might force the soul to abate her feeling, rendered more compassionate; is placable— because occasions rise so often that demand such sacrifice; more skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure, as tempted more; more able to endure, as more exposed to suffering and distress; thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
William Wordsworth
A hundredload of worry will not pay an ounce of debt.
George Herbert
And help us this and every day to live more nearly as we pray.
John Keble
I learned not to fear infinity,The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,The wheel turning away from itself,The sprawl of the wave,The on-coming water.
Theodore Roethke
If we take care of the inches we will not have to worry about the miles.
Hartley Coleridge
I love you because no two snowflakes are alike, and it is possible, if you stand tippy-toe, to walk between the raindrops.
Nikki Giovanni
The prospect Smiler was a manic farmer. Few men I think can have been as unfortunate as he; for on the one hand he was a melancholic with a loathing for mankind, on the other, some paralysis had twisted his mouth into a permanent and radiant smile. So everyone he met, being warmed by his smile, would shout him a happy greeting. And beaming upon them with his sunny face he would curse them all to hell.
Laurie Lee
Have you by any chance an edition of St. Ignatius's treatise against the Gnostics?" he asked in a low clear voice. The young assistant looked gravely back. "Not for sale, I'm afraid," he said. "Nor, if it comes to that, the Gnostic treatises against St. Ignatius." "Quite," Anthony answered.
Charles Williams
For while it is of no particular importance how many things you start in life, it is of great importance how many you finish!
Josephine Daskam Bacon
When a nation which has long groaned under the intolerable yoke of a tyrant rises at last and throws off its chains, do you call that weakness? The man who, to rescue his house from the flames, finds his physical strength redoubled, so that he lifts burdens with ease which in the absence of excitement he could scarcely move; he who under the rage of an insult attacks and puts to flight half a score of his enemies,—are such persons to be called weak? My good friend, if resistance be strength, how can the highest degree of resistance be a weakness?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
He saw a square room furnished as a library. The entire section of the walls which he could spy was covered from floor to ceiling with books. There were volumes of every size, every shape, every colour. There were long, narrow books that held themselves like grenadiers at stiff attention. There were short, fat books that stood solidly like aldermen who were going to make speeches and were ashamed but not frightened. There were mediocre books bearing themselves with the carelessness of folk who are never looked at and have consequently no shyness. There were solemn books that seemed to be feeling for their spectacles; and there were tattered, important books that had got dirty because they took snuff, and were tattered because they had been crossed in love and had never married afterwards. There were prim, ancient tomes that were certainly ashamed of their heroines and utterly unable to obtain a divorce from the hussies; and there were lean, rakish volumes that leaned carelessly, or perhaps it was with studied elegance, against their neighbours, murmuring in affected tones, "All heroines are charming to us.
James Stephens
tahiya hote pavan nahin pani, tahiya srishti kown utpati;tahiya hote kali nahin phula, tahiya hote garbh nahi mula;tahiya hote vidya nahin Veda, tahiya hote shabd nahin swada;tahiya hote pind nahin basu,nahin dhar dharni na pavan akasu;tahiya hote guru nahin chela, gamya agamya na panth duhela.Sakhi: avigati ki gati ka kahown, jake gawn na thawngun bihuna pekhana, ka kahi lijai nawnIn that state there is no air or water, and no creation or creator; There is no bud or flower, and no fetus or semen; There is no education or Vedas, and no word or taste; There is no body or settlement, and no earth, air or space; There is no guru or disciple, and no easy or difficult path.Sakhi: That state is very strange. I cannot explain it. It has no village or resting place. That state is without gunas (qualities). What name can on give it?
Kabir
I will walk by myself and cure myself in the sunshine and the wind.
Charles Reznikoff
Take hands.There is no love now.But there are hands.There is no joining now,But a joining has beenOf the fastening of fingersAnd their opening.More than the clasp even, the kissSpeaks loneliness,How we dwell apart,And how love triumphs in this.
Laura Riding Jackson
Time is a Test of Trouble - But not a Remedy - If such it proved it proves too There was no Melody.
Emily Dickinson
God became man; and the love, woman. (Dieu s'est fait homme; - Et l'amour, femme.)
Charles de Leusse
And so, now, it is almost midnight of the first day, and I have broken my resolution to go to bedearly - postponing sleep, and thereby the inevitable waking up in tomorrow. Another device of escape.
Silvia Plath
You are the enemy and a vessel through which the cure flows - if Christ lives in you, then you are an embodiment of the very shot this hostile and crying world needs as it, in every waking moment, struggles belligerently to resist.
Criss Jami
So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Dreams aren't finish lines to be reached at the close of a race. They don't suddenly materialize, fulfilled, where the road ends. The entire journey is included in the dream―all of it from beginning to forevermore. You're on that journey right now; hence, you're living the dream. Enjoy it.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Then none was for a party;Then all were for the state;Then the great man helped the poor,And the poor man loved the great;Then lands were fairly proportioned;Then spoils were fairly sold;The Romans were like brothersIn the brave days of old.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Farsi Couplet:Naala-e zanjeer-e Majnun arghanoon-e aashiqanastZauq-e aan andaza-e gosh-e ulul-albaab neestEnglish Translation:The creaking of the chain of Majnun is the orchestra of the lovers,To appreciate its music is quite beyond the ears of the wise.
Amir Khusrau
The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.
Muriel Rukeyser
How you do money is how you do life.
Orna Ross
But that woman is an encyclopedia!Of all vices, ancient and modern, and terribly interesting to leaf through!
Jean Lorrain
Courage isn’t being a dragon. Neither is it behaving like a dragon. Nor is it taking up arms to fight and defeat dragons. Courage is being a lamb standing with poise among dragons.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Investigation after declaration of submission leads astray.
Wasif Ali Wasif
TO ALL MANKINDSpeak kind wordsto mankindand the unkindwill attack you.Speak common senseusing any of your senses,and you will be attacked bythe senseless.Speak truth,and you will be attacked bythe untruthful.Speak about absolutely nothing,and absolutely nothingwill speak back,but then nothing at allwill ever change.
Suzy Kassem
A true confession: I believe in a soluble fish.
Charles Simic
...always-the sharp,plaintive edgeon the rimof the spoonof my giving.(lines 8-13 of the poem 'Confessions')
Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno
The story of a man's soul, however trivial, can be more interesting and instructive than the story of a whole nation
Mikhail Lermontov
Distortion is part of desire. We always change the things we want.
Siri Hustvedt
I write whenever it suits me. During a creative period I write every day a novel should not be interrupted.
François Mauriac
Silence does not always mark wisdom.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Why does a man destroy himself or what destroys him? I would have to judge that suicide is mostly the tool of the thinking man. The right to suicide should be the same as the right to love.
Charles Bukowski
True, I talk of dreams,Which are the children of an idle brain,Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,Which is as thin of substance as the air,And more inconstant than the wind, who woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north,And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.
William Shakespeare
No matter how dark the night may get, your light will never burn out.
Jeanette LeBlanc
A mighty mass of brick and smoke and shipping Dirty and dusty but as wide as eye Could reach with here and there a sail just skipping In sight then lost amidst the forestry Of masts a wilderness of steeples peeping On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy A huge dun cupola like a fools-cap crown On a fool's head - and there is London Town.
Lord Byron
The same heart beats in every human breast.
Matthew Arnold
Tis mightiest in the mightiest it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown His sceptre shows the force of temporal power The attribute to awe and majesty Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings But mercy is above this sceptred sway It is enthroned in the hearts of kings It is an attribute to God himself And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice.
William Shakespeare
You bad birds,But God shall not punish you, youShall be with us in heaven, though lessConscious of your happiness, perhaps, than we.Hell is a not quite satisfactory heaven, probably,But you are the fruit and jewelsOf my arrangement . . .
John Ashbery
I sometimes wonder if life isn’t a giant mirror that reflects back at me everything I hold up to it.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.
Edgar Allan Poe
When a group of people get up from a table, the table doesn’tknow which way any of them will go.
Galway Kinnell
Indifference may not wreck a man's life at any one turn but it will destroy him with a kind of dry-rot in the long run.
Bliss Carman