Timothy Leary
No man is an Island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankinde;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
John Donne
Every child is an artist.
The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Pablo Picasso
It is usually expensive and lonely to be principled.
from "The Happy Isles Of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific" - Paul Theroux
Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.
Paul Theroux
But hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity.
William Wordsworth
We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,
When such are wanted.
William Wordsworth
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.
William Wordsworth
Sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet.
William Wordsworth
Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.
William Wordsworth
Infinite riches in a little room.
Christopher Marlowe
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be.
from "Rabbi Ben Ezra" - Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)
The lie was dead
And damned, and truth stood up instead.
Robert Browning
He who did well in war just earns the right
To begin doing well in peace.
Robert Browning
I count life just a stuff
To try the soul's strength on.
Robert Browning
How Do I Love Thee?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
Alexander Pope
Everything that man esteems
Endures a moment or a day.
Love's pleasure drives his love away,
The painter's brush consumes his dreams;
The herald's cry, the soldier's tread
Exhaust his glory and his might:
Whatever flames upon the night
Man's own resinous heart has fed.
from "Two Songs from a Play" - William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)
If a man does not keep pace with his companions perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau
Children today are tyrants.
They contradict their parents,
gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.
Socrates (469 BC - 399 BC)
For Jean-Marc
May your hand be full for always
if only with another hand.
May your heart be empty only
long enough to give you cause
to fill it up again with love.
May your soul be lost by you
only to be found by God.
Rod McKuen
I've saved some sunlight
if you should ever need
a place away from darkness
where your mind can feed.
from Rod McKuen's "I've Saved The Summer"
Everybody has the answers
or they'll make them up
for you.
Just once I'd like to hear
a brand-new question.
from Rod McKuen's "The Art Of Catching Trains"
Love I wear
As open as a wound,
a mad mistake I know
but love, like Lent,
only comes to those of us
who still believe.
from Rod McKuen's "Mardi Gras"
Even when
you feel you've reached
the end or edge of life,
hold on.
Life itself
will ultimately
take care of you.
from Rod McKuen's "Night Walker"
Do not ask
the definition
of a friend.
He/She is that one
without whose company
death and dying
set in earlier
and living
is made more pleasurable.
from Rod McKuen's "Night Walker"
There is no other way
to find ourselves
but in each others faces.
from Rod McKuen's "Search Party"
We can do no great things, only small things with great love.
Mother Teresa
You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be --
I had a mother who read to me.
Strickland Gillilan (1869-1954)
Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
We have guided missiles and misguided men.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
I believe that God is like a powerhouse, like where you keep electricity, like a power station. And that he's a supreme power, and that he's neither good not bad, left, right, black or white. He just is. And we tap that source of power and make of it what we will. Just as electricity can kill people in a chair, or you can light a room with it. I think God is.
John Lennon (1940 - 1980)
Someday, when my children are old enough to understand the logic that motivates a mother, I'll tell them: I loved you enough to bug you about where you were going, with whom and what time you would get home. ... I loved you enough to be silent and let you discover your friend was a creep. I loved you enough to make you return a Milky Way with a bite out of it to a drugstore and confess, 'I stole this.' ... But most of all I loved you enough to say no when you hated me for it. That was the hardest part of all.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996)
The world goes up and the world goes down,
And the sunshine follows the rain;
And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown
Can never come over again.
Charles Kingsley
Young And Old
When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog its day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.
Charles Kingsley
Do not stand by my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am a diamond glint on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain
When you wake in the morning hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft starshine at night
Do not stand by my grave and cry
I am not there . . . I did not die
-unknown
XX
(known as "Funeral Blues" in the movie "Four Weddings And A Funeral")
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle, moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead
Put crepe bows round the white necks of public doves
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East, my West
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song
I thought love would last forever; I was wrong
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
W.H. Auden
By the time you swear you're his
Shivering, sighing
And he swears his love for you is
Infinite, undying
Lady, make a note of this
One of you is lying
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)
If all the girls at Vassar were laid end to end, I wouldn't be surprised.
Dorothy Parker
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Dorothy Parker
I'm never going to be famous.
My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things.
I don't do any thing. Not one single thing.
I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.
Dorothy Parker
One more drink and I'll be under the host.
Dorothy Parker
The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant --- and let the air out of their tires.
Dorothy Parker
Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving.
Rosalind Russell, as Auntie Mame
People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.
Rebecca West
All really great lovers are articulate, and verbal seduction is the surest road to actual seduction.
Marya Mannes
Now my body is in tumult. It is a colossal moment of joy. I would like to be Jupiter and kidnap everybody and lie down in the firmament making love to everybody.
from Roberto Benigni's Oscar speech
Dying is a troublesome business: there is pain to be suffered, and it wrings one’s heart; but death is a splendid thing - a warfare accomplished, a beginning all over again, a triumph. You can always see that in their faces.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Marilyn Monroe ~ My Words
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