Quotes to inspire and reflect

anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn’t he danced his did.

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence.

unless statistics lie he was more brave than me:more blond than you.

“there is some s. I will not eat”

“I will not kiss your f.ing flag”

i sing of Olaf glad and big whose warmest heart recoiled at war

next to of course god america i love you land of the pilgrims’ and so forth

take it from me kiddo believe me my country, ’tis of you, land of the Cluett Shirt Boston Garter and Spearmint Girl With The Wrigley Eyes (of you land of the Arrow Ide and Earl & Wilson Collars) of you i sing: land of Abraham Lincoln and Lydia land above all of Just Add Hot Water And from every B.V.D. let freedom ring amen.

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds.

Buffalo Bill’s defunct and break onetwothreefourfive pigeons- he was a handsome man how do you like your blueeyed boy Mister Death

when the world is puddle-wonderful

in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee

All in green went my love riding on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn.

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania.

Guns aren’t lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get

Men seldom make passes At girls who wear glasses.

Scratch a lover, and find a foe.

Four be the things I’d been better without: Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.

Four be the things I am wiser to know: Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled.

Red lips are not so red As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.

Above all, this book is not concerned with Poetry, The subject of it is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. All a poet can do is warn. 1

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

The poet is a little god.

I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm, On a day I already remember. I shall die in Paris—it does not bother me— Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn. 1

In this most Christian of worlds

Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink.

How strange a thing is death, bringing to his knees, bringing to his antlers The buck in the snow… Life, looking out attentive from the eyes of the doe.

If ever I said, in grief or pride, I tired of honest things, I lied.

I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.

Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they Who, though once only and then but far away, Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning;

I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year.

Death devours all lovely things; Lesbia with her sparrow Shares the darkness—presently Every bed is narrow.

We were very tired, we were very merry— We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light. 1

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood.

The world stands out on either side No wider than the heart is wide; Above the world is stretched the sky,— No higher than the soul is high. The heart can push the sea and land Farther away on either hand; The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through. But East and West will pinch the heart That can not keep them pushed apart; And he whose soul is flat—the sky Will cave in on him by and by.

A stranger always has his homeland in his arms like an orphan for which he may be seeking nothing but a grave. 1

We, the rescued, Beg you: Show us your sun, but gradually. Lead us from star to star, step by step. Be gentle when you teach us to live again. 2

I am caught like a beast at bay. Somewhere are people, freedom, light, But all I hear is the baying of the pack, There is no way out for me.