quotes from classic

Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation's tears in shoulder blades.

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The writer is the Faust of modern society, the only surviving individualist in a mass age. To his orthodox contemporaries he seems a semi-madman.

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Art has two constant, two unending concerns: It always meditates on death and thus always creates life. All great, genuine art resembles and continues the Revelation of St John.

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Work is the order of the day, just as it was at one time, with our first starts and our best efforts. Do you remember? Therein lies its delight. It brings back the forgotten; one's stores of energy, seemingly exhausted, come back to life.

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Even so, one step from my grave, I believe that cruelty, spite, The powers of darkness will in time, Be crushed by the spirit of light.

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Man is born to live and not to prepare to live.

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No deep and strong feeling, such as we may come across here and there in the world, is unmixed with compassion. The more we love, the more the object of our love seems to us to be a victim.

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I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats of any kind, whether of jail or retribution, then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer, not the prophet who sacrified himself.

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A corner draft fluttered the flame, and the white fever of temptation, upswept its angel wings that cast, a cruciform shadow.

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Our evenings are farewells. Our parties are testaments. So that the secret stream of suffering. May warm the cold of life.

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As far as modern writing is concerned, it is rarely rewarding to translate it, although it might be easy. Translation is very much like copying paintings.

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In view of the meaning given to this honor in the community to which I belong, I should abstain from the undeserved prize that has been awarded to me. Do not meet my voluntary refusal with ill will.

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I come here to speak poetry. It will always be in the grass. It will also be necessary to bend down to hear it. It will always be too simple to be discussed in assemblies.

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What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.

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Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it.

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I have not yet learned to live, that I can see, and I fear that I shall not very soon. I find, however, that in the long run things correspond...

more quotes from Henry David Thoreau

The world is a cow that is hard to milk,—life does not come so easy,—and oh, how thinly it is watered ere we get it!

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This life we live is a strange dream, and I don't believe at all any account men give of it.

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I am astonished at the singular pertinacity and endurance of our lives. The miracle is, that what is is, when it is so difficult, if not impos...

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Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.

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