Stephen Spender > Quotes

“All that you can imagine you already know”
― Stephen Spender

“Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.”
― Stephen Spender

“I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.”
― Stephen Spender

“When you read and understand a poem, then you master chaos a little.”
― Stephen Spender

“الفتى والفتاة اللذان يتبادلان الغرام على مقعد في حديقة عامة أو في إحدى أزقة الريف لا يعلمان أن هناك برقية تشن طريقها من لندن هذه اللحظة (وتمرُّ خلال جسديهما!) لكي تقرر أن مصير الفتى هو أن يُنزَع من بين أحضان فتاته ويلقى على رمال الصحراء وفي رأسه طلقة نارية, بينما تساهم الفتاة في إنتاج الطلقات النارية في مصنع من المصانع الحربية ..”
― Stephen Spender, الحياة والشاعر

“Near the snow,near the sun , in the highest field
See how those names are feted by the wavering grass,
And by the streamers of white cloud,
And whispers of wind in the listening sky;
The names of those who in their lives have fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towrads the sun.
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.”
― Sir Stephen Spender

“Paul Valery speaks of the 'une ligne donnee' of a poem. One line is given to the poet by God or by nature, the rest he has to discover for himself.”
― Stephen Spender

“The greatest of all human delusions is that there is a tangible goal, and not just direction towards an ideal aim. The idea that a goal can be attained perpetually frustrates human beings, who are disappointed at never getting there, never being able to stop.”
― Stephen Spender, World Within World: The Autobiography of Stephen Spender

“...Tolstoy's characters seem to come forward to meet you, very conscious of the impression they are making on one another and on the reader.”
― Stephen Spender

“I think continually of those who were truly great...Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, and left the vivid air signed with their honor.”
― Stephen Spender

“Although Poets are vain and ambitious, their vanity and ambition are of the purest kind attainable in this world. They are ambitious to be accepted for what they altimately are as revealed in their poetry.”
― Stephen Spender

“أتكلّم عن كل فرد, الحياة في نظره هي الحياة, وليست مجرد حلقة جاثمة لا نهاية لها من القوانين والمخاوف والعبودية والادعاء والبحث عن المراكز واغتصاب المال. لا شك أن كل إنسان قد مر بمثل هذه اللحظات, لحظات يتحرر فيها من ظروف الحاضر ومخاوفه وشروره لكي يحيا ببساطة لأجل الحياة.
إن فهم هذه اللحظات هو جوهر الحرية..”
― Stephen Spender, الحياة والشاعر

“Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother / With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.”
― Stephen Spender

“The important rules in life are to Love and not feel guilty about what form the Love takes. Guilt is Failure to Love, which turns against you and causes Neurosis which, in turn, realises itself as Cancer.”
― Stephen Spender, The Temple

“My philosophy, if you can call it that, is that I am happy because there is no sufficient reason why I should be unhappy.”
― Stephen Spender

“[Dylan] Thomas's poetry is turned on like a tap; it is just poetic stuff with no beginning nor end, shape or intelligent and intelligible control”
― Stephen Spender

“Daybreak"

At dawn she lay with her profile at that angle
Which, when she sleeps, seems the carved face of an angel.
Her hair a harp, the hand of breeze follows
And plays, against the white cloud of the pillows.
Then, in a flush of rose, she woke, and here eyes that opened
Swam in blue through her rose flesh that dawned.
‘My dream becomes my dream,’ she said, ‘come true.
I waken from you to my dream of you.’
Oh, my own wakened dream then dared assume
The audacity of her sleep. Our dreams
Poured into each other’s arms, like streams.”
― Stephen Spender, New Collected Poems of Stephen Spender

“Him I delight in accepts joy as joy;
He is richened by sorrow as a river by its bends”
― Stephen Spender, Poems by Stephen Spender

“At these best moments a great humility fused with a great ambition: to be only what I was, but to the utmost of what I was.”
― Stephen Spender, World Within World: The Autobiography of Stephen Spender

“Through man’s love and woman’s love
Moons and tides move
Which fuse those islands, lying face to face.
Mixing in naked passion,
Those who naked new life fashion
Are themselves reborn in naked grace.”
― Stephen Spender