Quotes by Poets - Page 411

Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When most of the greatest individuals in history were misunderstood and you've spent so much of your own adult life misunderstood, you can't help but believe that the majority of people know very little worth knowing.
Criss Jami
You read a book for the story, for each of its words," Gordy said, "and you draw your cartoons for the story, for each of the words and images. And, yeah, you need to take that seriously, but you should also read and draw because really good books and cartoons give you a boner."I was shocked:"Did you just say books should give me a boner?""Yes, I did.""Are you serious?""Yeah... don't you get excited about books?""I don't think that you're supposed to get THAT excited about books.""You should get a boner! You have to get a boner!" Gordy shouted. "Come on!"We ran into the Reardan High School Library."Look at all these books," he said."There aren't that many," I said. It was a small library in a small high school in a small town."There are three thousand four hundred and twelve books here," Gordy said. "I know that because I counted them.""Okay, now you're officially a freak," I said."Yes, it's a small library. It's a tiny one. But if you read one of these books a day, it would still take you almost ten years to finish.""What's your point?""The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don't know."Wow. That was a huge idea.Any town, even one as small as Reardan, was a place of mystery. And that meant Wellpinit, the smaller, Indian town, was also a place of mystery."Okay, so it's like each of these books is a mystery. Every book is a mystery. And if you read all of the books ever written, it's like you've read one giant mystery. And no matter how much you learn, you keep on learning so much more you need to learn.""Yes, yes, yes, yes," Gordy said. "Now doesn't that give you a boner?""I am rock hard," I said.
Sherman Alexie
When we make judgements we're inevitably acting on limited knowledge, isn't it best to ask if we seek to understand, or simply let them be?
Jay Woodman
Someone said, 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.' Precisely, and they are that which we know.
T.S Eliot
Ah, child and youth, if you knew the bliss which resides in the taste of knowledge, and the evil and ugliness that lies in ignorance, how well you are advised to not complain of the pain and labor of learning.
Christine de Pizan
He who cannot draw on three thousand years is living from hand to mouth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Alas, how terrible is wisdomwhen it brings no profit to the man that's wise!This I knew well, but had forgotten it,else I would not have come here.
Sophocles
I think a lot of psychopaths are just geniuses who drove so fast that they lost control.
Criss Jami
Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.
Audre Lorde
Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.
Ezra Pound
I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions.
Hermann Hesse
When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
Kahlil Gibran
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot.
Alexander Pope
The surest way of concealing from others the boundaries of one's own knowledge is not to overstep them.
Giacomo Leopardi
If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next—if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions—you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You'd never love anyone, ever again. You'd never dare to.
Margaret Atwood
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.
Maya Angelou
As for the belief that humanity is mostly good, Secular humanism, when in that alignment, always presumes the existence of a higher power, or some god-like influence on man. Because it then becomes the belief that people are generally good and should be protected from the wiles of religion, as though this dark, vague and ignorant force once fell from the heavens, latched onto the purer hearts and minds of men and women, and, in all its forms, controlled and polluted the whole of human history. He says, 'When we defeat religion, humanity will be free.' But, if he were duly consistent, if he were really at all as secular as he claims, he might as well admit to what is actually an underlying brand of nihilistic cynicism: 'When we defeat humans, humanity will be free.
Criss Jami
But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth—pagans and all included—can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?—to do the will of God—that is worship. And what is the will of God?—to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me—that is the will of God.
Herman Melville
Christ is our Friend; He is also the Righteous King. God is our Father; He is also the Sovereign Lord. Christianity can be said to be both a religion and a relationship. You may often hear the cliché that it is not a religion, but a relationship only - which, I believe, is a bit too vague a statement - 'religion' has long had different meanings and implications depending on who you ask or where you are coming from. Honestly, it is sometimes the case that Christians like to think they are too cool and free and up-close and personal with God to be like other religions. Perhaps that could be argued, that could be the case, as it is written thus: 'You are no longer a slave to sin, but God's child.' So we might very well assert that Christianity is not at all some stale philosophy centered around legalistic guilt and empty rule-keeping, as the modernists so commonly define religion; although by other definitions we might as well be boasting that it is 'The Religion' simply by claiming that it is too real and too special to be deemed 'just another religion'.
Criss Jami
I will complain, yet praise;I will bewail, approve:And all my sowre-sweet dayesI will lament, and love.
George Herbert
I believe with perfect faith that at this very momentmillions of human beings are standing at crossroadsand intersections, in jungles and deserts,showing each other where to turn, what the right way is,which direction. They explain exactly where to go,what is the quickest way to get there, when to stopand ask again. There, over there. The secondturnoff, not the first, and from there left or right,near the white house, by the oak tree.They explain with excited voices, with a wave of the handand a nod of the head: There, over there, not that there, the other there,as in some ancient rite. This too is a new religion.I believe with perfect faith that at this very moment.
Yehuda Amichai
Did Jesus Christ, he asked, suspect that someday his church would spread to the farthest corners of Earth? Did Jesus Christ, he asked, ever have what we, today, call an idea of the world? Did Jesus Christ, who apparently knew everything, know that the world was round and to the east lived the Chinese (this sentence he spat out, as if it cost him great effort to utter it) and to the west the primitive peoples of America? And he answered himself, no, although of course in a way having an idea of the world is easy, everybody has one, generally an idea restricted to one's village, bound to the land, to the tangible and mediocre things before one's eyes, and this idea of the world, petty, limited, crusted with the grime of the familiar, tends to persist and acquire authority and eloquence with the passage of time.
Roberto Bolaño
The morning was bright and propitious. Before their departure, mass had been said in the chapel, and the protection of St. Ignatius invoked against all contingent evils, but especially against bears, which, like the fiery dragons of old, seemed to cherish unconquerable hostility to the Holy Church. ("The Legend Of Monte Del Diablo").
Bret Harte
The Best ideal is the true and other truth is none. All glory be ascribed to the holy Three in One.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
The world of fundamental religion does not recognize even the slightest variation in meaning should this meaning fall outside its own definition of truth.
Susan Griffin
The most important question I ever asked a priest was where are the Bingo Dobbers at?
Stabley Victor Paskavich
Some say God exists outside creation if in fact he did breath in Adams nostrils he became part of humanity and creation.
Stanley Victor Paskavich
Maybe we should Create a 'Happy God Day' and make it the one day of the year you can't kill each other.
Stanley Victor Paskavich
Substance of your belief has nothing to do with the size of the book you use or how often you open it.
Stanley Victor Paskavich
Pronto me di cuenta de que estas enseñanzas podían ser un consuelo sólo para los que las aceptaran literalmente y que creyeran ser la verdad. Si fueran, como para mí, en parte bella literatura, parte símbolos intrincados; un intento de explicación mitológica del mundo, uno podría instruirse y apreciarlas, pero uno no aprendería la forma de vivir y sacar fuerza de ellas.
Hermann Hesse
From the house of unbeliefto true religionis a single breath;From the world of doubtto certaintyis a single breath;Enjoy this precious single breath,for the harvestof our whole livesis that same one breath.
Omar Khayyám
but it was a religion which enabled him to despise himself and everyone else without despising the universe, thus allowing him at once in argument or conversation to the advantages of the pessimist and the optimist.
Charles Williams
Beyond Islam and unbelief there is a desert plain. For us, there is a passion in the midst of that expanse. The knower who reaches there will prostrate, there is neither Islam nor unbelief, nor any 'where' in that place.
Jalaluddin Rumi
There are some doubters even in the western villages. One woman told me last Christmas that she did not believe either in hell or in ghosts. Hell she thought was merely an invention got up by the priest to keep people good; and ghosts would not be permitted, she held, to go 'trapsin about the earth' at their own free will; 'but there are faeries,' she added, 'and little leprechauns, and water-horses, and fallen angels.' I have met also a man with a mohawk Indian tattooed upon his arm, who held exactly similar beliefs and unbeliefs. No matter what one doubts one never doubts the faeries, for, as the man with the mohawk Indian on his arm said to me, 'they stand to reason.' Even the official mind does not escape this faith. ("Reason and Unreason")
W.B. Yeats
My religion is no way of knowing me.
Jeet Thayil
I learned about religion the way most children learned about sex, [in the schoolyard]. . . . They terrified me by telling me there was a dead man in the sky watching everything I did and I retaliated by explaining where babies came from. Some of their mothers phoned mine to complain, though I think I was more upset than they were: they didn't believe me but I believed them.
Margaret Atwood
Destiny waits in the hand of god, shaping the still unshapen..
T.S Eliot
My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you – I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again – my Life seems to stop there – I see no further. You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving – I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you … I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion – I have shudder’d at it – I shudder no more – I could be martyr’d for my Religion – Love is my religion – I could die for that – I could die for you.
John Keats
I love the freedom of my wings. I love the empty space above the ground. I rejoice in my freedom. Freedom is my religion. Peace is my God. Love is my worship.
Banani Ray
O cowardly amd tyrannous race of monks, persecutors of the bard, and the gleemen, haters of life and joy! O race that does not draw the sword and tell the truth! O race that melts the bones of the people with cowardice and with deceit! ("The Crucifixion Of The Outcast")
W.B. Yeats
(Priests) cheapjack merchants selling paradise
Jean Lorrain
The main thing for inner contentment is to be in a state of grace. And there is an artistic state of grace, for art is a kind of religion.
Georges Rodenbach
For Hell and the foul fiend that rulesGod's everlasting fiery jails(Devised by rogues, dreaded by fools),With his grim, grisly dog that keeps the door,Are senseless stories, idle tales,Dreams, whimseys, and no more.
John Wilmot
I had never been into society; for me the world was the enclosure of the college and the seminary. I had a vague knowledge that there was a something called woman, but I never dwelt upon the subject; I was absolutely innocent. I saw my infirm old mother only twice a year; that was the extent of my connection with the outside world.
Théophile Gautier
All my life I have preserved in the depths of my heart a live faith in my Creator, the Defender of the World, in His Sanctifying Grace and in the expiatory sacrifice of Christ our Saviour, but never have I agreed that true religion demands outward manifestations.
Valery Bryusov
this is her body this is her blood
Saul Williams
I prayed aloud, less to plead for divine favor than to intimidate the tribe with articulate speech.
Jorge Luis Borges
A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstrate that he was indeed a seer.
Stephen Crane
And if you would know God, be not therefore a solver of riddles.Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.
Kahlil Gibran
I love you, my brother, whoever you are - whether you worship in a church, kneel in your temple, or pray in your mosque. You and I are children of one faith, for the diverse paths of religion are fingers of the loving hand of the one supreme being, a hand extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, eager to receive all.
Kahlil Gibran
I am not protecting myself or preaching you my story, Reasons will be many but life will move on even in painful journey.
Santosh Kalwar
Through love, tribes have been intermixing colors to reveal a new rainbow world. And as more time passes, this racial and cultural blending will make it harder for humans to side with one race, nation or religion over another.
Suzy Kassem
Much of human behavior can be explained by watching the wild beasts around us. They are constantly teaching us things about ourselves and the way of the universe, but most people are too blind to watch and listen.
Suzy Kassem
These days when Christians bicker they exaggerate passion into a legalistic belief and prosperity into a lukewarm belief.
Criss Jami
Nothing is a sin when you obey the orders of a priest
Alfred de Musset
Every day and every night, I dance with Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohammad & all personal Gods: Krishna, Shiva & Buddha. You are welcome too !
Santosh Kalwar
Vaguely conscious of that great suspense in which we live, we find our escape from its sterile, annihilating reality in many dreams, in religion, passion, art.
Arthur Symons
When it's all over and the dust from our Ancestors bodies and our own settle from the four winds only then will we see that we were here!
Stanley Victor Paskavich
Peygamber dedi: 'Kadın akıllılara ve gönül sahiplerine tam galip gelir. Cahillerse kadına üstün olur, çünkü onlar sert ve serkeş davranır.' İncelik, letafet ve insaf onlarda az bulunur, çünkü tabiatlarında hayvanlık galiptir. Sevgi ve incelik, insanlık vasfıdır. Öfke ve şehvet, hayvanlık vasfıdır. O, Hakk'ın ışığıdır; sevgili değil. O, sanki yaratıcıdır; yaratılmış değildir.
Jalaluddin Rumi