#poetry

I would like The Discovery of Poetry to be a field guide to the natural pleasures of language - a happiness we were born to have. ↗

— Frances Mayes

#poetry #nature

One could say that artists are people who think naturally in highly patterned ways. ↗

— Helen Vendler

#poets #nature

I have only to contemplate myself; man comes from nothing, passes through time, and disappears forever in the bosom of God. He is seen but for a moment wandering on the verge of two abysses, and then is lost. If man were wholly ignorant of himself he would have no poetry in him, for one cannot describe what one does not conceive. If he saw himself clearly, his imagination would remain idle and would have nothing to add to the picture. But the nature of man is sufficiently revealed for him to know something of himself and sufficiently veiled to leave much impenetrable darkness, a darkness in which he ever gropes, forever in vain, trying to understand himself. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#humankind #inspirational #poetry #profound #understanding

I think these movements and become them, here, In this room's stillness, none of them about, And relish them all-until I think of where Thrashed by a crook, the cursive adder writes Quick V's and Q's in the dust and rubs them out. from "Movements ↗

— Norman MacCaig

#scottish-poetry #nature

Tell this to ladies: how a hero man Assail a thick and scandalous giant Who casts true shadow in the sun, And die, but play no truant. This is more horrible: that the darling egg Of the chosen people hatch a creature Of noblest mind and powerful leg Who cannot fathom nor perform his nature. ↗

— John Crowe Ransom

#goliath #king-david #nature

Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow, through Eden took their solitary way. ↗

— John Milton

#nature

Envy won't make you a better poet. ↗

— Katerina Stoykova Klemer

#envy #personal-growth #poetry #relationships #writing