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Quotes by Poet

"We don't attempt to have any theme for a number of the anthology, or to have any particular sequence. We just put in things that we like, and then we try to alternate the prose and the poetry."

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."

"That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, lest you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture!"

"The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself."

"We must have our say, not through violence, aggression or fear. We must speak out calmly and forcefully. We shall only be able to enter the new world era if we agree to engage in dialogue with the other side."

"To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears."

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."

"Traveling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go."

"Some debts are fun when you are acquiring them, but none are fun when you set about retiring them."
Fun,

"I will say nothing... against the course of my existence. But at bottom it has been nothing but pain and burden, and I can affirm that during the whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuine well-being. It is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever."

"Gratitude is the inward feeling of kindness received. Thankfulness is the natural impulse to express that feeling. Thanksgiving is the following of that impulse."

"My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain."

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."

"Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst...They are for nothing but to inspire."


"A low line of shore was visible at first on the right between the movement of the waves and fog, but when we came further it was lost sight of, and nothing could be seen but the mist curling in the rigging, and a small circle of foam."

"Guarding knowledge is not a good way to understand. Understanding means to throw away your knowledge."

"Cats have it all - admiration, an endless sleep, and company only when they want it."

"Understanding is the other name of love. If you don't understand, you can't love."

"If we think we have twenty-four hours to achieve a certain purpose, today will become a means to attain an end. The moment of chopping wood and carrying water is the moment of happiness. We do not need to wait for these chores to be done to be happy. To have happiness in this moment is the spirit of aimlessness. Otherwise, we will run in circles for the rest of our life. We have everything we need to make the present moment the happiest in our life, even if we have a cold or a headache. We don't have to wait until we get over our cold to be happy. Having a cold is a part of life."

"You will never win anyone through pity. You must create the right kind of dream, the sober, adult kind of magic: illusion born from disillusion."

"Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed."

"Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends."

"The moon seems unawareof night's dark hittingon the damp warm rain misguiding owl's spitting A thunder light of loveraising hearts beatingwhile weather learns morefrom rain lovers meeting."
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