Life and Existence

I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land … So I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.

In the long run we are all dead.

I do not know which makes a man more conservative—to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

I do not know which makes a man more conservative—to know nothing but the present, or nothing but the past.

The beat generation.

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.

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.

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

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

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’.

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

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

O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!

O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!

Then on the shore

When I have fears that I may cease to be

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird!

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;