#poetry

To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of emotion--a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge. ↗

— George Eliot

#poetry #poets

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits. ↗

— Robert A. Heinlein

#poets

The philosopher with his two eyes sees double, so is unable to see the unity of the Truth. ↗

— Mahmud Shabistari

#sufi-mystic-poetry #truth #unity

How should we be able to forget those ancient myths that are at the beginning of all peoples, the myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us. So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloudshadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you. ↗

— Rainer Maria Rilke

#change #courage #depression #dragons #fears

In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, ‘Is it good, friend?’ ‘It is bitter — bitter,’ he answered, ‘But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart. ↗

— Stephen Crane

#heart #poetry #poem

There's an old saying that applies to me: you can't lose a game if you don't play the game. (Act 1, scene 4) ↗

— William Shakespeare

#shakespeare

There is no greater sorrow Than to recall a happy time When miserable. ↗

— Dante Alighieri

#italian-medieval-poetry #nostalgia #À-la-recherche-du-temps-perdu #sorrow

.....and I smile and know why people write music and paint and dance, lifted as if they can fly, because this ache crashing inside needs to be free. sometimes, love becomes a melody others hum for years. ↗

— Pat Mora

#love #poetry #art

...some say Twitter seems trite and lacks weightiness - but in actuality, it lends itself to poetry - it can be very compressed and intense... ↗

— John Geddes

#intense #poetry #trie #twitter #weightiness

Winter solitude- in a world of one colour the sound of the wind. ↗

— Matsuo Bashō

#poetry #wind