Quotes to inspire and reflect

The learning and blundering people will live on. They will be tricked and sold and again sold And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds.

Why is there always a secret singing When a lawyer cashes in? Why does a hearse horse snicker Hauling a lawyer away?

Lay me on an anvil, O God. Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar. Let me pry loose old walls. Let me lift and loosen old foundations.

When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin… in the dust, in the cool tombs.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work— I am the grass; I cover all.

The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on.

Hog butcher for the world, Tool maker, stacker of wheat, Player with railroads and the nation’s freight handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the big shoulders.

Bridge, Fountain, Gate, Jug, Fruit tree, Window,— possibly: Pillar, Tower?

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

but beginning of Terror we’re still just able to bear, and why we adore it so is because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Each single angel is terrible.

Us the most fleeting of all. Just once, everything, only for once. Once and no more. And we, too, once. And never again. But this having been once, though only once, having been once on earth—can it ever be canceled?

Pigeons on the grass alas.

I am Rose my eyes are blue I am Rose and who are you I am Rose and when I sing I am Rose like anything.

The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.

To know to know to love her so. Four saints prepare for saints.

Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.

This is the Law of the Yukon, that only the strong shall thrive; That surely the weak shall perish, and only the fit survive. Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain, This is the Will of the Yukon—Lo, how she makes it plain!

Unless I’m wrong I but obey The urge of a song: I’m—bound—away! And I may return If dissatisfied With what I learn From having died.

It’s all a mystery, so much is mysterious. And we are here to endure it. And in the How, there lies the whole difference— 1

It takes all sorts of in and outdoor schooling To get adapted to my kind of fooling.

I am assured at any rate Man’s practically inexterminate. Someday I must go into that. There’s always been an Ararat Where someone someone else begat To start the world all over at.

It asks a little of us here. It asks of us a certain height, So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may take something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.

That looks in on to a mood apart.

All those who try to go it sole alone, Too proud to be beholden for relief, Are absolutely sure to come to grief.

Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

Have I not walked without an upward look Of caution under stars that very well Might not have missed me when they shot and fell? It was a risk I had to take—and took.

First there’s the children’s house of make believe, Some shattered dishes underneath a pine, The playthings in the playhouse of the children. Weep for what little things could make them glad.

Back out of all this now too much for us, Back in a time made simple by the loss Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather, There is a house that is no more a house Upon a farm that is no more a farm And in a town that is no more a town.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

And were an epitaph to be my story I’d have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

Far in the pillared dark Thrush music went— Almost like a call to come in To the dark and lament. But no, I was out for stars: I would not come in. I meant not even if asked, And I hadn’t been.

But strictly held by none, is loosely bound By countless silken ties of love and thought To everything on earth the compass round, And only by one’s going slightly taut In the capriciousness of summer air Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

She is as in a field a silken tent At midday when a sunny summer breeze Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent, So that in guys it gently sways at ease.

The land was ours before we were the land’s. She was our land more than a hundred years Before we were her people.

I never dared to be radical when young For fear it would make me conservative when old.

The old dog barks backward without getting up. I can remember when he was a pup.

No memory of having starred Atones for later disregard, Or keeps the end from being hard. Better to go down dignified With boughten friendship by your side Than none at all. Provide, provide!

But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to unite My avocation and my vocation As my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes, Is the deed ever really done For Heaven and the future’s sakes.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day When the sun is out and the wind is still, You’re one month on in the middle of May. But if you so much as dare to speak, A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, A wind comes off a frozen peak, And you’re two months back in the middle of March.

Don’t join too many gangs. Join few if any. Join the United States and join the family— But not much in between unless a college.

If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes Will keep my talk from getting overwise, I’m not the one for putting off the proof. Let it be overwhelming.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

That day she put our heads together, Fate had her imagination about her, Your head so much concerned with outer, Mine with inner, weather.

Tree at my window, window tree, My sash is lowered when night comes on; But let there never be curtain drawn Between you and me.

Keep cold, young orchard. Goodbye and keep cold. Dread fifty above more than fifty below.

It looked as if a night of dark intent Was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage. There would be more than ocean-water broken Before God’s last Put out the Light was spoken.

Love at the lips was touch As sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air.