Quotes by Poets - Page 125

Criticism, upon the right one, surpasses and prevails, nothing since it causes a sign of self-discredit.
Ehsan Sehgal
Works of art are infinitely solitary and nothing is less likely to reach them than criticism. Only love can grasp them and hold them and do them justice.
Rainer Maria Rilke
To listen to critics, pro or con, and take their words to heart is to subcontract your self-esteem to strangers. (from Workbook)
Steven Heighton
[The critic] serves up his erudition in strong doses; he pours out all the knowledge he got up the day before in some library or other, and treats in heathenish fashion people at whose feet he ought to sit, and the most ignorant of whom could give points to much wiser men than he.Authors bear this sort of thing with a magnanimity and a patience that are really incomprehensible. For, after all, who are those critics, who with their trenchant tone, their dicta, might be supposed sons of the gods? They are simply fellows who were at college with us, and who have turned their studies to less account, since they have not produced anything, and can do no more than soil and spoil the works of others, like true stymphalid vampires.
Théophile Gautier
Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.
A.E. Housman
His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend. His backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract.
William Shakespeare
If you love my work, you are a good critic. If you do not love my work, you are a 'not good' critic.
Roman Payne
As soon seek roses in December, ice in June,Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaffBelieve a woman or an epitaphOr any other thing that’s falseBefore you trust in critics.
George Gordon Byron
People quickly grow accustomed to being the slaves of mystery.
Guillaume Apollinaire
A lion does not flinch at laughter coming from a hyena. A gorilla does not budge from a banana thrown at it by a monkey. A nightingale does not stop singing its beautiful song at the intrusion of an annoying woodpecker.
Suzy Kassem
In criticism, I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.
Edgar Allan Poe
Faith, is the road that goes straight past the gravel, and cloud-mesh dirt into a mirage, where still you believe to go straight, and when you finally catch up with it, it ends at a lake where you stretch your eyes across, but unable to glimpse the other side- so you jump in and swim, gliding each stroke with tiredness and swallow of water, you reach the end, put a hand out and pull yourself up on concrete, where the same road continues straight into another blue-white blur.
Anthony Liccione
How did writing come to me? Like bird’s down on my windowpane, in winter. Just then there rose in the heart a struggle of firebrands, which has, still now, not ended.
René Char
Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore.
Herman Melville
Question and AnswerDurban, Birmingham,Cape Town, Alabama,Johannesburg, Watts,The earth aroundStruggling, fighting,Dying--for what?A world to gain.Groping, hoping,Waiting--for what?A world to gain.Dreams kicked asunder,Why not go under?There's a world to gain.But suppose I don't want it,Why take it?To remake it.
Langston Hughes
Not all women will fall for every man, but some women will surely fall for the right man.
Santosh Kalwar
I feel that there has to be a purpose to what we do. If there was no hope at all, we should just sleep or drink and wait for death. But we don’t want to do that. And why? I think something tells us that we should struggle. We don’t really know why we should struggle, but we do, because we think it’s better than sitting down and waiting for calamity.
Chinua Achebe
It's a struggle but you have to keep going.
Jonathan Anthony Burkett
After you cross a hurdle, it looks so easy. Sometimes, it may feel that it was always possible. However, for that feeling of euphoria, you have to slog. After all, nothing comes for free!
Neelam Saxena Chandra
i need someonewho knows struggleas well as i dosomeonewilling to hold my feet in their lapon days it is too difficult to standthe type of person who givesexactly what i needbefore i even know i need itthe type of lover who hears meeven when i do not speakis the type of understandingi demand- the type of lover i need
Rupi Kaur
No one knows my struggle, they only see the trouble. Not knowing how hard it is to carry on when no one loves you.
Tupac Shakur
There is no life without struggle.
Santosh Kalwar
On top of the world, or in the depths of despair.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The brain has only three functions: open, closed, or deprived.
Anthony Liccione
You are where your brain is but not where a front-page headline is.
Santosh Kalwar
On October thirteenth, twenty sixteen.My operations were out of order, but I never gave up.I have a Math brain
Charmaine J.Forde
I would not put a thief in my mouth to steal my brains.
William Shakespeare
He said, I won't have one of those things in the house. It gives a young girl a false notion of beauty, not to mention anatomy. If a real woman was built like that she'd fall on her face.She said, If we don't let her have one like all the other girls she'll feel singled out. It'll become an issue. She'll long for one and she'll long to turn into one. Repression breeds sublimation. You know that. He said, It's not just the pointy plastic tits, it's the wardrobes. The wardrobes and that stupid male doll, what's his name, the one with the underwear glued on.She said, Better to get it over with when she's young. He said, All right but don't let me see it.She came whizzing down the stairs, thrown like a dart. She was stark naked. Her hair had been chopped off, her head was turned back to front, she was missing some toes and she'd been tattooed all over her body with purple ink, in a scrollwork design. She hit the potted azalea, trembled there for a moment like a botched angel, and fell.He said, I guess we're safe.
Margaret Atwood
What a face this girl possessed!—could I not gaze at it every day I would need to recreate it through painting, sculpture, or fatherhood until a second such face is born.
Roman Payne
A girl without braidsis like a city without bridges.
Roman Payne
I see you go bare-shod. This is most likely extremely sensible. Shoes are no end of trouble for girls. . . . How many have danced to death in slippers of silk and glass and fur and wood? Too many to count—the graveyards, they are so full these days. You are very wise to let your soles become grubby with mud, to let them grow their own slippers of moss and clay and calluses. This is far preferable to shoes which may become wicked at any moment.
Catherynne M. Valente
What is it, Master Calligrapher, that little girls do in the way that spiders weave?" sleeve asked primly.The Calligrapher coughed, for his room was very dusty, and there was dust even on his eyelashes, and said: "It is right and proper," he said, "for a girl to read as many books as there are bricks in this city, and then, when she is finished, to begin to write new ones which are made out of the old ones, as this city is made of those stones.
Catherynne M. Valente
She was a free bird one minute: queen of the world and laughing. The next minute she would be in tears like a porcelain angel, about to teeter, fall and break. She was brave, and I never once saw her cry out of fear. She never cried because she was afraid that something would happen; she would cry because she feared something that could render the world more beautiful, would not happen… She believed if I gave in to make her fortune become realized, the world would be ultimately profound and beautiful. I guess I held out because I feared the realization of her fortune would mean the destruction of us together. And each time she cried, I fell a little more deeply in love with her.
Roman Payne
i dream nights and girls like tigers,claws and teeth on both.
Elisabeth Hewer
He was a kind of éminence grise, a political leader, in a clandestine movement. Everyone knows there are girls who go for that kind of thing. There are girls who go for Huysmanists, for that matter. I once met a girl -- a pretty, attractive girl -- who told me she fantasized about Jean-François Copé. It took me several days to get over it. Really, with girls today, all bets are off.
Michel Houellebecq
Not all girls are made of sugar and spice and all things nice. Some are made of witchcraft and wolf and a little bit of vice.
Nikita Gill
All the girls I had ever loved were mine. Each gave me what she alone had to give and to each I gave what she alone knew how to take.
Hermann Hesse
I wondered what it would be like, to love a girl, to know how a girl thinks, to see the world through a girl's eyes. Maybe they knew more than boys. Maybe they understood things that boys could never understand.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
I’m not used to girls, or familiar with their customs. I feel awkward around them, I don’t know what to say. I know the unspoken rules of boys, but with girls I sense that I am always on the verge of some unforeseen, calamitous blunder.
Margaret Atwood
Something is unfolding, being revealed to me. I see that there's a whole world of of girls and their doings that has been unknown to me, and that I can be part of without making any effort at all. I don't have to keep up with anyone, run as fast, aim as well, make loud explosive noises, decode messages, die on cue. I don't have to think about whether I do these things well, as well as a boy. All I have to do is sit on the floor and cut frying pans our of the Eaton's Catalogue with embroidery scissors, and say I've done it badly.
Margaret Atwood
A girl without braids is like a city without bridges.
Roman Payne
Girls, there are poets who learn from youto say, what you, in your aloneness, are;and they learn through you to live distantness,as the evenings through the great starsbecome accustomed to eternity.
Rainer Maria Rilke
What is salvation without faith? is likea Christmas tree without a star, is likea kingdom without a king, is likea heart without a beat, is likea light switch that just won't turn on.
Anthony Liccione
I just don’t understand how you can get so much comfort from a religion whose language does so much harm.”…I realized that what troubled me most was her use of the word “comfort,” so in my reply I addressed that first. I said that I didn’t think it was comfort I was seeking, or comfort that I’d found. Look, I said to her, as a rush of words came to me. As far as I’m concerned, this religion has saved my life, my husband’s life, and our marriage. So it’s not comfort that I’m talking about but salvation.
Kathleen Norris
How I hated myself, thwarted, poisoned and tortured myself, made myself old and ugly. Never again, as I once fondly imagined, will I consider that Siddartha is clever. But one thing I have done well, which pleases me, which I must praise- I have now put an end to that self-detestation, to that foolish empty life. I commend you, Siddartha, that after so many years of folly, you have again a good idea, that you have accomplished something, that you have again heard the bird in your breast sing and followed it.
Hermann Hesse
Blind faith in belief-system, ideologies, doctrine or dogma can never set us free. Only the knowledge of truth can liberate us from the slavery of doctrine, dogmas, blind faiths and religious sects.
Banani Ray
The pen is my true salvation. God is not.
Khali Raymond
There is nothing to opinions, theymay be beautiful or ugly, smart or foolish, everyone can support them ordiscard them. But the teachings, you’ve heard from me, are no opinion,and their goal is not to explain the world to those who seek knowledge.They have a different goal; their goal is salvation from suffering. This iswhat Gotama teaches, nothing else.
Hermann Hesse
THE HOST is riding from Knocknarea And over the grave of Clooth-na-bare; Caolte tossing his burning hair And Niamh calling Away, come away: Empty your heart of its mortal dream. The winds awaken, the leaves whirl round, Our cheeks are pale, our hair is unbound, Our breasts are heaving, our eyes are a-gleam, Our arms are waving, our lips are apart; And if any gaze on our rushing band, We come between him and the deed of his hand, We come between him and the hope of his heart. The host is rushing ’twixt night and day, And where is there hope or deed as fair? Caolte tossing his burning hair, And Niamh calling Away, come away
W.B. Yeats
No one and nothing outside of you can give you salvation, or free you from the misery. You have to light your own lamp. You have to know the miniature universe that you yourself are.
Banani Ray
This corn will teach to you, should you peel away the husk, and be willing to open your ears.
Anthony Liccione
... for you will never, I trust, disconnect what you may yourselves be learning from the hope and prospect of being enabled thereby to teach others more effectually. If you do, and your studies in this way become a selfish thing, if you are content to leave them barren of all profit to others, of this you may be sure, that in the end they will prove not less barren of profit to yourselves. In one noble line Chaucer has characterized the true scholar:- "And gladly would he learn and gladly teach." Resolve that in the spirit of this line you will work and live.
Richard Chenevix Trench
droppedand fallingfrom suchheightsfor solongthatmaybeI will haveenough timeto learnflying
Vera Pavlova
I learn, I earn.
Santosh Kalwar
I simply wish to continue to learn, & try to do what I have to do, better.
Jay Woodman
We should learn to savor some moments to let time feel worth existing
Munia Khan
Being here to witness the beauty, to learn, to be astonished, to love - is enough. Being able to create in addition is a delightful honour.
Jay Woodman
I am so grateful to be here on this awesome planet with it's diverse life - everything we need to not just survive but to thrive. I am excited to continually learn more about it, and always curious to see what is going to come up next.
Jay Woodman
Learning After some time, you learn the subtle difference betweenholding a handand imprisoning a soul;You learn that love does not equal sex,and that company does not equal security,and you start to learn….That kisses are not contracts and gifts are not promises, and you start to accept defeat with the head up highand open eyes,and you learn to build all roads on today,because the terrain of tomorrow is too insecure for plans…and the future has its own way of falling apart in half.And you learn that if it’s too mucheven the warmth of the sun can burn.So you plant your own garden and embellish your own soul,instead of waiting for someone to bring flowers to you.And you learn that you can actually bear hardship,that you are actually strong,and you are actually worthy,and you learn and learn…and so every day.Over time you learn that being with someonebecause they offer you a good future,means that sooner or later you’ll want to return to your past.Over time you comprehend that only who is capable of loving you with your flaws, with no intention of changing youcan bring you all happiness.Over time you learn that if you are with a persononly to accompany your own solitude, irremediably you’ll end up wishing not to see them again.Over time you learn that real friends are fewand whoever doesn’t fight for them, sooner or later,will find himself surrounded only with false friendships.Over time you learn that words spoken in moments of angercontinue hurting throughout a lifetime.Over time you learn that everyone can apologize,but forgiveness is an attribute solely of great souls.Over time you comprehend that if you have hurt a friend harshlyit is very likely that your friendship will never be the same.Over time you realize that despite being happy with your friends,you cry for those you let go.Over time you realize that every experience lived, with each person, is unrepeatable.Over time you realize that whoever humiliatesor scorns another human being, sooner or laterwill suffer the same humiliations or scorn in tenfold.Over time you learn to build your roads on today,because the path of tomorrow doesn’t exist.Over time you comprehend that rushing things or forcing them to happencauses the finale to be different form expected.Over time you realize that in fact the best was not the future,but the moment you were living just that instant.Over time you will see that even when you are happy with those around you,you’ll yearn for those who walked away.Over time you will learn to forgive or ask for forgiveness,say you love, say you miss, say you need,say you want to be friends, since beforea grave, it will no longer make sense.But unfortunately, only over time…
Jorge Luis Borges
So, if you don't summon a book and a light before dawn,If you don't set your mind on honest aims and pursuits,On waking, you'll be tortured by envy or lust.Why so quick to remove a speck from your eye, whenIf it's your mind, you put off the cure till next year?Who's started has half finished: dare to be wise: begin!
Horace