David Bates > David's Quotes

“Don’t I remember those rustic evenings, now
buried under a thick shawl of futile memories
when you and I, walked and talked
and melted into the lurid nightfall?
I do.”
― Abhijit Sarmah, The Voice Under Silence: Poems

“The purpose of poetry is not to provide a solution or, say, to stop a war or prevent millions of people from dying, etc. Poetry can never do that. Poetry is all about keeping the dialogue alive. Poetry must bring forth, time and again, issues that need attention and are intentionally or unintentionally forgotten.”
― Abhijit Sarmah

“A withering gem at the heart
Of a dying river
—Majuli”
― Abhijit Sarmah

“My town of clouds and river
Of terrifying minds and young dreams
Streets with some people
Good people smiling
Train tracks of dreamers,
High, happy, celebrating—
Us, themselves and the beauty.”
― Abhijit Sarmah, The Voice Under Silence: Poems

“So old were you, Grammpa—
the last time I saw you, anaemic
You looked like the monsoon in my town.”
― Abhijit Sarmah, The Voice Under Silence: Poems

“It ends. Good things
always end terribly,
at dawn in his arms
wrapped, silently
or— late in the night
in unchartered apartments
or hotel foyers, over a
fight. It ends. Good things
always end terribly.”
― Abhijit Sarmah, The Voice Under Silence: Poems

“Resist much, obey little.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”
― Walt Whitman

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
― Walt Whitman

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.”
― Walt Whitman

“We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering... these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love... these are what we stay alive for.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“Do anything, but let it produce joy.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”
― Walt Whitman

“Pointing to another world will never stop vice among us; shedding light over this world can alone help us.”
― Walt Whitman

“I think I could turn and live with animals, they are 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, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass: The Death-Bed Edition

“Forever is composed of nows.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“What day is it?” asked Pooh.
“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.”
― A.A. Milne

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”
― Henry David Thoreau

“Happiness, not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour.”
― Walt Whitman

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“We're so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us that we don't take time to enjoy where we are.”
― Bill Watterson

“The only way to survive eternity is to be able to appreciate each moment.”
― Lauren Kate, Fallen

“Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.”
― Albert Einstein

“These are the days that must happen to you.”
― Walt Whitman

“The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.”
― Thomas S. Monson

“I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.”
― Abraham Lincoln