Great is my envy of you, earth, in your greed Folding her in invisible embrace,...
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Did you really leave me again? After all the seasons I spent waiting, watching out the window, listening at the door, waiting for the news of your return? for the news that you realized that someone important was waiting for you. A whole lifetime I've been waiting. I can't believe you're not coming back. I can't believe I'm supposed to stop waiting. I can't believe you left me again...
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I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows.
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I, the sultan of sultans, and the strongest ruler, the loftiest king who defeats the kingdoms around the world, and the shadow of Allah in the Earth, am the son of Sultan Selim who is the son of Sultan Beyazid, Sultan Suleiman, Caesar of Rome, the sultan of Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, and Thrace, and Anatolia, and Karaman and the City of Dulkadir and Diyarbakir and Kurdistan, and Iran and Damascus and Aleppo and Egypt and Mecca and Medinah and Jerusalem and the whole Arab land and Yemen and many more lands that our lofty ancestors conquered with their crushing powers and I conquered with my fire-scattering sword...
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The course of true love never did run smooth.
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I drink to our ruined house, to the dolor of my life, to our loneliness together; and to you I raise my glass, to lying lips that have betrayed us, to dead-cold pitiless eyes, and to the hard realities; that the world is brutal and coarse, that God, in fact, has not saved us.
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Rise, brothers, rise; the wakening skies pray to the morning light, The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night. Come, let us gather our nets from the shore and set our catamarans free, To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the kings of the sea! No longer delay, let us hasten away in the track of the sea gull's call, The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother, the waves are our comrades all. What though we toss at the fall of the sun where the hand of the sea-god drives? He who holds the storm by the hair, will hide in his breast our lives. Sweet is the shade of the cocoanut glade, and the scent of the mango grove, And sweet are the sands at the full o' the moon with the sound of the voices we love; But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam's glee; Row, brothers, row to the edge of the verge, where the low sky mates with the sea.
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I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.
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To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. It is not the...
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How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need; by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath. Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
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Hope smiles on the threshold of the year to come, whispering that it will be happier.
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Pain has an element of blank—
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The good social worker doesn't go on mechanically helping people out of a ditch. Pretty soon, she/he begins to find out what ought to be done to get rid of the ditch.
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A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.
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That the whole free people of any nation ought to be exercised to arms, not only the example of our ancestors, as appears by the acts of parliament made in both kingdoms to that purpose, and that of the wisest governments among the ancients; but the advantage of choosing out of great numbers, seems clearly to demonstrate. For in countries where husbandry, trade, manufactures, and other mechanical arts are carried on, even in time of war, the impediments of men are so many and so various, that unless the whole people be exercised, no considerable numbers of men can be drawn out, without disturbing those employments, which are the vitals of the political body. Besides, that upon great defeats, and under extreme calamities, from which no government was ever exempted, every nation stands in need of all the people, as the ancients sometimes did of their slaves. And I cannot see why arms should be denied to any man who is not a slave, since they are the only true badges of liberty; and ought never, but in times of utmost necessity, to be put into the hands of mercenaries or slaves: neither can I understand why any man that has arms should not be taught the use of them.
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What though the radiance which was once so bright Be not forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; Grief not, rather find, Strength in what remains behind, In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be, In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of Human suffering, In the faith that looks through death In years that bring philophic mind.
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April is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory out of desire, stirringDull roots with spring rain.Winter kept us warm, coveringEarth in a forgetful snow, feedingA little life with dried tubers.
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A golden rule: to leave an incomplete image of oneself.
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The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.
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Mistakes are a fact of life. It’s the response to the error that counts.
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The people think of wealth and power as the greatest fate,
But in this world a spell of health is the best state.
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Eagerly, musician,Sweep your string,So we may sing,Elated, optative,Our several voicesInterblending,Playfully contending,Not interferingBut co-inhering,For all withinThe cincture of the soundIs holy ground,Where all are Brothers,None faceless Others. Let mortals bewareOf words, forWith words we lie,Can say peaceWhen we mean war,Foul thought speak fairAnd promise falsely,But song is true:Let music for peaceBe the paradigm,For peace means to changeAt the right time,As the World-Clock,Goes Tick and Tock. So may the storyOf our human cityPresently moveLike music, whenBegotten notesNew notes beget,Making the flowingOf time a growing,Till what it could be,At last it is,Where even sadnessIs a form of gladness,Where Fate is Freedom,Grace and Surprise.
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If then a practical end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of training good members of society. Its art is the art of social life, and its end is fitness for the world. It neither confines its views to particular professions on the one hand, nor creates heroes or inspires genius on the other. Works indeed of genius fall under no art; heroic minds come under no rule; a University is not a birthplace of poets or of immortal authors, of founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or conquerors of nations. It does not promise a generation of Aristotles or Newtons, of Napoleons or Washingtons, of Raphaels or Shakespeares, though such miracles of nature it has before now contained within its precincts. Nor is it content on the other hand with forming the critic or the experimentalist, the economist or the engineer, though such too it includes within its scope. But a University training is the great ordinary means to an great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspiration, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political power, and refining the intercourse of private life. It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them.
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To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
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I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity
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Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So, to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise.
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Language is the soul of intellect, and reading is the essential process by which that intellect is cultivated beyond the commonplace experiences of everyday life.
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This life's dim windows of the soul Distorts the heavens from pole to pole And leads you to believe a lie When you see with, not through, the eye.
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Said the little boy, Sometimes I drop my spoon. Said the little old man, I do that too. The little boy whispered, I wet my pants. I do too, laughed the old man. Said the little boy, I often cry. The old man nodded. So do I. But worst of all, said the boy, it seems Grown-ups don't pay attention to me. And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand. I know what you mean, said the little old man.
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To laugh often and much to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others to leave the world a little better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.
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