"Here life goes on, even and monotonous on the surface, full of lightning, of summits and of despair, in its depths. We have now arrived at a stage in life so rich in new perceptions that cannot be transmitted to those at another stage - one feels at the same time full of so much gentleness and so much despair - the enigma of this life grows, grows, drowns one and crushes one, then all of a sudden in a supreme moment of light one becomes aware of the sacred."
Quote collection
May Sarton quotes (page 4 of 14)
275 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"A man with a talent does what is expected of him, makes his way, constructs, is an engineer, a composer, a builder of bridges. It's the natural order of things that he construct objects outside himself and his family. The woman who does so is aberrant. We have to expiate for this cursed talent someone handed out to us, by mistake, in the black mystery of genetics."
"There is only one real deprivation... and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most."
"I see a certain order in the universe and math is one way of making it visible."
"It is good for a professional to be reminded that his professionalism is only a husk, that the real person must remain an amateur, a lover of the work."
"It always comes back to the same necessity: go deep enough and there is a bedrock of truth, however hard."
"I live alone, perhaps for no good reason, for the reason that I am an impossible creature, set apart by a temperament I have never learned to use as it could be used, thrown off by a word, a glance, a rainy day, or one drink too many. My need to be alone is balanced against my fear of what will happen when suddenly I enter the huge empty silence if I cannot find support there. I go up to Heaven and down to Hell in an hour, and keep alive only by imposing upon myself inexorable routines. I write too many letters and too few poems."
"It is dark now. The snow is deep blue and the ocean nearly black. It is time for some music."
"When we admit our vulnerability, we include others. If we deny it, we shut them out."
"No partner in a love relationship... should feel that he has to give up an essential part of himself to make it viable."
"I want feelings to be expressed, to be open, to be natural, not to be looked on as strange. It's not weird if you feel deeply."
"The garden is growth and change and that means loss as well as constant new treasures to make up for a few disasters."
"Where music thundered let the mind be still, Where the will triumphed let there be no will, What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill."
"Don't forget that compared to a grownup person every baby is a genius. Think of the capacity to learn! The freshness, the temperament, the will of a baby a few months old!"
"Anyone who is going to be a writer knows enough at fifteen to write several novels."
"I would predicate that in all great works of genius masculine and feminine elements in the personality find expression, whether this androgynous nature is played out sexually or not."
"Where joy in an old pencil is not absurd."
"She became for me an island of light, fun, wisdom where I could run with my discoveries and torments and hopes at any time of day and find welcome."
"Self-respect is nothing to hide behind. When you need it most it isn't there."
"True feeling justifies whatever it may cost."