#poetry

Life is only a flicker of melted ice. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#flicker #ice #life #literature #literature-quotes

The light teaches you to convert life into a festive promenade. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#dejan-stojanovic #festive #light #literature #literature-quotes

I could have been 23 next July I gambled on what mattered most, the dice were cast. I lost. ↗

— Hannah Senesh

#last-words #martyrs #poetry #life

I think I could turn and live with animals, they’re so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, or to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one respectful or unhappy over the whole earth. ↗

— Walt Whitman

#life-and-living #poetry #life

Pour voir, pour savoir, pour tenter la Destinée. ↗

— Charles Baudelaire

#poetry #life

Unjustified ambition kills value, Kills someone else's desire to fly, Cuts their wings, sucks their air. If there is nothing else, it eats its own life. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#ambition #dejan-stojanovic #desire #fly #life

There is always the question why And there is always life, Which doesn't need an answer. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#answers #dejan-stojanovic #life #literature #literature-quotes

Otherwise I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise. ↗

— Jane Kenyon

#life #poetry #life

Choice, and all its attendant energy, is a characteristic of youth. It is before one chooses that one feels desire and longing without fulfillment, which gives an edge to any artistic endeavor. Galway Kinnell recently said in an interview that a young poet has so many choices but an old poet must simply endure his chosen life. ↗

— Mary Ruefle

#poetry #youth #life

Ask him why there are hypocrites in the world.' 'Because it is hard to bear the happiness of others.' 'When are we happy?' 'When we desire nothing and realize that possession is only momentary, and so are forever playing.' 'What is regret?' 'To realize that one has spent one's life worrying about the future.' 'What is sorrow?' 'To long for the past.' 'What is the highest pleasure?' 'To hear a good story. ↗

— Vikram Chandra

#hinduism #pleasure #poetry #sorrow #life