Quote collection
274 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair. And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice"
"Two things of opposite natures seem to depend / One on another, as Logos depends / On Eros, day on night, the imagined On the real. / This is the origin of change."
"Tinsel in February, tinsel in August. There are things in a man besides his reason."
"The great poems of heaven and hell have been written and the great poem of earth remains to be written."
"One ought not to hoard culture. It should be adapted and infused into society as a leaven. Liberality of culture does not mean illiberality of its benefits."
"Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility."
"Thought is an infection. In the case of certain thoughts, it becomes an epidemic."
"As life grows more terrible, its literature grows more terrible."
"After the leaves have fallen, we return To a plain sense of things. It is as if We had come to an end of the imagination, Inanimate in an inert savoir."
"...after a night spent writing poetry, one is almost happy to hear the milkman at the door."
"The consolations of space are nameless things. It was after the neurosis of winter. It was In the genius of summer that they blew up The statue of Jove among the boomy clouds. It took all day to quieten the sky And then to refill its emptiness again."
"I measure myself Against a tall tree I find that I am much taller, For I reach right up to the sun With my eye; And I reach to the shore of the sea With my ear. Nevertheless, I dislike The way the ants crawl In and out of my shadow."
"Trees Trees, proud standing people stretching fingertips to the sky, reaching, praying glorious attention, breathing light. strength shelter timeless confidence bending and firm comforting rooted chorus line dancing with the moon, the wind, the clouds framing bursts of stars tender rugged celebration absorbing and releasing life each holy branch holding the power of the Universe. There."
"How red the rose that is the soldier"
"the windy sky Cries out a literate despair."
"Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams?"
"Civilization must be destroyed. The hairy saints of the North have earned this crumb by their complaints."
"The heavy trees, The grunting, shuffling branches, the robust, The nocturnal, the antique, the blue-green pines Deepen the feelings to inhuman depths."
"Money is a kind of poetry."
"The genuine artist is never 'true to life.' He sees what is real, but not as we are normally aware of it. We do not go storming through life like actors in a play. Art is never real life."