P S > P's Quotes

“Forever is composed of nows.”
― Emily Dickinson

“Let all your thinks be thanks.”
― W.H. Auden

“Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.”
― W.H. Auden

“We are all here on earth to help others: what on earth the others are here for, I don't know.”
― W.H. Auden

“The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the teacup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.”
― W.H. Auden

“As readers, we remain in the nursery stage so long as we cannot distinguish between taste and judgment, so long, that is, as the only possible verdicts we can pass on a book are two: this I like; this I don't like.
For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five: I can see this is good and I like it; I can see this is good but I don't like it; I can see this is good and, though at present I don't like it, I believe that with perseverance I shall come to like it; I can see that this is trash but I like it; I can see that this is trash and I don't like it.”
― W.H. Auden, A Certain World: A Commonplace Book

“It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
― wendell berry

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

“The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. We are apt to fall into the error of thinking that the facts are simple because simplicity is the goal of our quest. The guiding motto in the life of every natural philosopher should be, 'Seek simplicity and distrust it.”
― Alfred North Whitehead, The Concept of Nature: The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, 11/1919

“The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes - ah, that is where the art resides.”
― Artur Schnabel

“Creativity in all forms of life, from arts to business to domestic situations, depends on our ability to recognize and explore gaps”
― Itay Talgam

“It is only when we are aware of the earth and of the earth as poetry that we truly live.”
― Henry Beston

“Change will lead to insight more often than insight will lead to change.”
― Milton Erickson

“Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking. By walking one makes the road, and upon glancing behind one sees the path that never will be trod again. Wanderer, there is no road-- Only wakes upon the sea.

Caminante, son tus huellas el camino, y nada más; caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Al andar se hace camino, y al volver la vista atrás se ve la senda que nunca se ha de volver a pisar. Caminante, no hay camino, sino estelas en la mar.”
― Antonio Machado, Campos de Castilla

“Our only fate is to lie in the beds that we make.”
― Michael Moreci

“And then an odd thing happened.I could, in fact, sense exactly where everyone was in the process of eating his or her meal”
― Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye: A Journey

“You pulled one story from your head, and another story popped up in its place, like tissues from a box.”
― Eileen Pollack

“But that (My brother's first science fair) project changed my life.”
― Eileen Pollack

“What is that unforgettable line?”
― Samuel Beckett

“Facts which were new to me were daily presenting themselves to my mind.”
― Noah Webster

“Whether you reed or rite, accustom yourselves to stand at a high desk”
― Noah Webster, A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings: On Moral, Historical, Political, and Literary Subjects

“A writer is a reader moved to emulation.”
― Saul Bellow

“A writer is a reader who is moved to emulation.”
― William Maxwell

“A drawing of a tree shows not a tree but a tree being looked at”
― John Berger

“Socrates pioneered conversation as a means of intellectual exploration, of questioning assumptions, ones so deeply ingrained we dont even know we have them.”
― Eric Weiner

“The problems we discover on our own are the ones that motivate us the most”
― Eric Weiner

“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.”
― Jonathan Swift

“A vision without a task is but a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. A vision and a task are the hope of the world.”
― Inscription on a church wall in Sussex England c. 1730

“I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.”
― Susan Sontag

“i want to apologize to all the women i have called beautiful
before i’ve called them intelligent or brave
i am sorry i made it sound as though
something as simple as what you’re born with
is all you have to be proud of
when you have broken mountains with your wit
from now on i will say things like
you are resilient, or you are extraordinary
not because i don’t think you’re beautiful
but because i need you to know
you are more than that”
― Rupi Kaur