quotes from classic

Matrimony is the high sea for which no compass has yet to be invented.

more quotes from Heinrich Heine

God will forgive me. It's his job.

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Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings. (Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen)

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The weather-cock on the church spire, though made of iron, would soon be broken by the storm-wind if it... did not understand the noble art of turning to every wind.

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When it aims to express a love of the world it refuses to conceal the many reasons why the world is hard to love, though we must love it because we have no other, and to fail to love it is not to exist at all.

more quotes from Mark van Doren

The job of the poet is to render the world - to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.

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Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor; it is the sign that he wants all the truth.

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The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.

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Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbow'd. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Lies but the horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find me, unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

more quotes from William Ernest Henley

A late lark twitters from the quiet skies: And from the west, Where the sun, his day's work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, gray city An influence luminous and serene, A shining peace.

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Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles.

more quotes from Annie Dillard

A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.

more quotes from Annie Dillard

The surest sign of age is loneliness.

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As soon as beauty is sought not from religion and love, but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker.

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As a life's work, I would remember everything - everything, against loss. I would go through life like a plankton net.

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It could be that our faithlessness is a cowering cowardice born of our very smallness, a massive failure of imagination... If we were to judge nature by common sense or likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed.

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There is a muscular energy in sunlight corresponding to the spiritual energy of wind.

more quotes from Annie Dillard

You can't test courage cautiously.

more quotes from Annie Dillard

Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you.

more quotes from Annie Dillard

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?"

more quotes from Annie Dillard