Poets Quotes

I decided that it was not wisdom that
enabled poets to write their poetry,
but a kind of instinct or inspiration,
such as you find in seers and prophets
who deliver all their sublime messages
without knowing in the least what they mean.
- Socrates

Related topics: Deep Intuition Channeling

The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods.
- Socrates

Sucking the marrow out of life
doesn't mean choking on the bone.
- Robin Williams as John Keating
in the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society

I am the poet of my mind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I am the poet of my mind.
I am the painter of my heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The poet is one who is able to keep
the fresh vision of the child alive.
- Anais Nin

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
- Rumi (Persian poet 1207-1273)

Each day provides it's own gifts.
- Martial (Roman Poet)

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role,
is to try and express what we all feel.
Not to tell people how to feel.
Not as a preacher, not as a leader,
but as a reflection of us all.
- John Lennon

There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember
who said, "Truth is the daughter of Time."
- Abraham Lincoln

The poet ranks far below the painter
in the representation of visible things,
and far below the musician in that of invisible things.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet.
He must be a great original interpreter
of his time, his day, his age.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Youth, large, lusty, loving -
Youth, full of grace, force, fascination.
Do you know that Old Age may come after you
with equal grace, force, fascination?
- Walt Whitman

The River of Life has no meaning, no good, no bad,
no better, no worse, no love, no hate, no fear, no anger, no joy.
The River of Life has no judgment, no expectation.
The River of Life just IS. There is nothing to do.
There is nothing to say.
There is nothing to think.
There is nothing to feel.
The River just flows. The River is the source of all nourishment -
the source of all obstacles.
The River is the source of all life - the source of all death.
The River is the source of all joy - and the source of all sorrow.
Yet the River has no joy - and the River has no sorrow.
The River is just the River.
One can flow harmoniously with the River -
or one can struggle fearfully against the River -
and the River just flows.
One can accept the River - or one can deny the River -
and the River just flows.
One can worship the River of Life - or one can curse the River of Life -
and the River just flows. There is nothing to do - and the River flows.
There is nothing to say - and the River flows.
There is nothing to think - and the River flows.
There is nothing to feel - and the River flows.
The River flows - and all else is our drama.
The River flows - and all else is our invention.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The River of Life has no judgments.
The River flows with no concept of good and bad - right and wrong.
The fields and dreams of men may be nourished by the River of Life,
or flooded and covered with silt, and the River just flows.
Men may catch fish and live on the River of Life,
or they may founder in a storm and drown, and the River just flows.
The River of Life is timeless.
It is not unchanging, but it is timeless,
and it changes in its own time.
The River of Life knows no obstacles.
The River can cut through solid rock - in its own time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The River of Life flows without emotion.
The River surges. The River quiets.
The River overflows its banks. The River dries to a trickle.
The River swirls and storms. The River becomes calm.
The River runs clear. The River runs dark with silt.
The River is indifferent to what benefit
or what harm is caused by its water.
The River is the River, and that is all there is to it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I think that there is nothing, not even crime,
more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself
than this incessant business.
- Henry David Thoreau

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas.
- Albert Einstein

I've always had a love for poetry,
and when I got signed to a record label I thought,
"How odd that I'm doing a record before a book of poetry."
- Jewel

When power leads man toward arrogance,
poetry reminds him of his limitations.
When power narrows the area of man's concern,
poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence.
When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
- John F. Kennedy

On His Blindness:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
- John Milton (1608-1674)

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore

A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.
- Seneca

Mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis
of man's desire to understand.
- Neil Armstrong

Circumstances make man, not man circumstances.
- Mark Twain

The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
- Confucius

A man is what he thinks about all day long.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever your life's work is, do it well.
A man should do his job so well that the living,
the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A man should look for what is,
and not for what he thinks should be.
- Albert Einstein

A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.
- George Savile

Non-violence requires a double faith,
faith in God and also faith in man.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

A man who as a physical being
is always turned toward the outside,
thinking that his happiness lies outside him,
finally turns inward and
discovers that the source is within him.
- Soren Kierkegaard

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
- Oscar Wilde

That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
- Henry David Thoreau

During the first period of a man's life
the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
- Soren Kierkegaard

No man is free who is not master of himself.
- Epictetus

All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)

When I look back on all these worries,
I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed
that he had had a lot of trouble in his life,
most of which had never happened.
- Winston Churchill

Every man dies. Not every man truly lives.
- the movie Braveheart

As long as a man stands in his own way,
everything seems to be in his way.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The wise man looks back into the past,
and does not grieve over what is far off,
nor rejoice over what is near;
for he knows that time is without end.
- Lao Tzu

A great man is always willing to be little.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A man can do only what he can do.
But if he does that each day he can sleep at night
and do it again the next day.
- Albert Schweitzer

If a man does not know what port he is steering for,
no wind is favorable to him.
- Seneca

If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought,
happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
- The Buddha

If a man empties his purse into his head,
no man can take it away from him.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
- Benjamin Franklin

If thou wilt make a man happy,
add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.
- Epicurus

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

How could man rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?
- Lao Tzu

A great secret of success is to go through life
as a man who never gets used up.
- Albert Schweitzer

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head,
and knows not that it brings abundance
to drive away the hunger.
- Saint Basil

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question
than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
- Bruce Lee

Many a man fails as an original thinker
simply because his memory is too good.
- Nietzsche

The ultimate test of a man's conscience
may be his willingness to sacrifice something today
for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.
- Gaylord Nelson

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
- Abraham Lincoln

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
- Epicurus

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.
- B. C. Forbes

There are other measures of self-respect for a man,
than the number of clean shirts he puts on every day.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
- The Bible

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me,
that man with all his noble qualities...
still bears in his bodily frame
the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
- Charles Darwin

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal
of plain living and high thinking
the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants.
Man's happiness really lies in contentment.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

There is a sufficiency in the world
for man's need but not for man's greed.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives
and not in what he is able to receive.
- Albert Einstein

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie