Quotes to inspire and reflect

The beat generation.

It was involuntary. They sank my boat.

In free society art is not a weapon … Artists are not engineers of the soul.

Ich bin ein Berliner.

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.

Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace.

We stand today on the edge of a new frontier.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

Don’t buy a single vote more than necessary.

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

The mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that ‘w-a-t-e-r’ meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, joy, set it free! The Story of My Life (1902) ch. 4

‘Load every rift’ of your subject with ore.

The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing—to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. Not a select party.

Call the world if you please ‘The vale of soul-making’.

Fine writing is next to fine doing the top thing in the world.

The Wordsworthian or egotistical sublime.

I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.

It is impossible to live in a country which is continually under hatches … Rain! Rain! Rain!

If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.

There is nothing stable in the world—uproar’s your only music.

Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections and the truth of imagination—what the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth—whether it existed before or not.

O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!

When I behold, upon the night’s starred face

Then on the shore

To one who has been long in city pent,

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards,

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

’Mid hushed, cool-rooted flowers, fragrant-eyed,

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been