#poetry

All the same, we ought to point out that if the kinds of poetry and representation which are designed merely to give pleasure can come up with a rational argument for their inclusion in a well-governed community, we'd be delighted -- short of compromising the truth as we see it, which wouldn't be right -- to bring them back from exile: after all, we know from our own experience all about their spell. I mean haven't you ever fallen under the spell of poetry, Glaucon, especially when the spectacle is provided by Homer? ↗

— Plato

#design

I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen, and so I swung into action and wrote a poem, and it was miserable, for that's how I thought poetry worked: you digested experience and shat literature. [from "Mingus at the Showplace"] ↗

— William Matthews

#poetry #teenagers #experience

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind. ↗

— Kahlil Gibran

#learning #philosophy #poetry #teaching #wisdom

Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#mysticism #poetry #reason #serenity #faith

الموتُ دون العهدِ غايةُ الكرمْ ↗

— أحمد شوقي

#faithfulness #faith

Even the most political poem is an act of faith. ↗

— Martin Espada

#poetry #faith

We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble. ↗

— Emily Dickinson

#believe #believing #doubt #faith #poem

Though I love your company, your instructions are wasted her. I will always choose the woman who caries me off, I will always sit with the family of loneliness. ↗

— Leonard Cohen

#family

Sure, we thought the acres That we tilled were sacred, But how could we have known That wheat can haunt like ghosts ↗

— Sherman Alexie

#family-farm #poem #poetry #sherman-alexie #short-poems

If you are a dreamer come in If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer If youre a pretender com sit by my fire For we have some flax golden tales to spin Come in! Come in! ↗

— Shel Silverstein

#imagination #liar #make-believe #poetry #wisher