Wise Quotes about Poets

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
- Rumi (Persian poet 1207-1273)

I am the poet of my mind.
I am the painter of my heart.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The poet is one who is able to keep
the fresh vision of the child alive.
- Anais Nin

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role,
is to try and express what we all feel.
Not to tell people how to feel.
Not as a preacher, not as a leader,
but as a reflection of us all.
- John Lennon

There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember
who said, "Truth is the daughter of Time."
- Abraham Lincoln

Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet.
He must be a great original interpreter
of his time, his day, his age.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

The poet ranks far below the painter
in the representation of visible things,
and far below the musician in that of invisible things.
- Leonardo da Vinci

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The River of Life flows without emotion.
The River surges. The River quiets.
The River overflows its banks. The River dries to a trickle.
The River swirls and storms. The River becomes calm.
The River runs clear. The River runs dark with silt.
The River is indifferent to what benefit
or what harm is caused by its water.
The River is the River, and that is all there is to it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The River of Life has no judgments.
The River flows with no concept of good and bad - right and wrong.
The fields and dreams of men may be nourished by the River of Life,
or flooded and covered with silt, and the River just flows.
Men may catch fish and live on the River of Life,
or they may founder in a storm and drown, and the River just flows.
The River of Life is timeless.
It is not unchanging, but it is timeless,
and it changes in its own time.
The River of Life knows no obstacles.
The River can cut through solid rock - in its own time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Youth, large, lusty, loving -
Youth, full of grace, force, fascination.
Do you know that Old Age may come after you
with equal grace, force, fascination?
- Walt Whitman

The River of Life has no meaning, no good, no bad,
no better, no worse, no love, no hate, no fear, no anger, no joy.
The River of Life has no judgment, no expectation.
The River of Life just IS. There is nothing to do.
There is nothing to say.
There is nothing to think.
There is nothing to feel.
The River just flows. The River is the source of all nourishment -
the source of all obstacles.
The River is the source of all life - the source of all death.
The River is the source of all joy - and the source of all sorrow.
Yet the River has no joy - and the River has no sorrow.
The River is just the River.
One can flow harmoniously with the River -
or one can struggle fearfully against the River -
and the River just flows.
One can accept the River - or one can deny the River -
and the River just flows.
One can worship the River of Life - or one can curse the River of Life -
and the River just flows. There is nothing to do - and the River flows.
There is nothing to say - and the River flows.
There is nothing to think - and the River flows.
There is nothing to feel - and the River flows.
The River flows - and all else is our drama.
The River flows - and all else is our invention.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I think that there is nothing, not even crime,
more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself
than this incessant business.
- Henry David Thoreau

I've always had a love for poetry,
and when I got signed to a record label I thought,
"How odd that I'm doing a record before a book of poetry."
- Jewel

When power leads man toward arrogance,
poetry reminds him of his limitations.
When power narrows the area of man's concern,
poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence.
When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.
- John F. Kennedy

On His Blindness:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
- John Milton (1608-1674)

Eroticism is one of the basic means of self-knowledge,
as indispensable as poetry.
- Anais Nin

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

You cannot teach a man anything;
you can only help him find it within himself.
- Galileo Galilei

A wise man will make haste to forgive,
because he knows the true value of time,
and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
- Samuel Johnson

Mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis
of man's desire to understand.
- Neil Armstrong

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man.
Everything that exists has brought
with it its own peculiar lesson.
- Orison Swett Marden

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question
than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
- Bruce Lee

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

You cannot build character and courage by
taking away a man's initiative and independence.
- Abraham Lincoln

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,
teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
- Chinese Proverb

When you are offended at any man's fault,
turn to yourself and study your own failings.
Then you will forget your anger.
- Epictetus

Man becomes great exactly in the degree
in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Is the babe young? When I behold it,
it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
- Henry David Thoreau

Many a man fails as an original thinker
simply because his memory is too good.
- Nietzsche

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing,
and that is that I know nothing.
- Socrates

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy.
What right have we then to depreciate imagination.
- Carl Jung

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid
as getting to know how enormously much
he is capable of doing and becoming.
- Soren Kierkegaard

The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
- Confucius

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
- Naguib Mahfouz

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head,
and knows not that it brings abundance
to drive away the hunger.
- Saint Basil

The man who goes alone can start today;
but he who travels with another
must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau

The more a man can forget, the greater the number
of metamorphoses which his life can undergo,
the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
- Soren Kierkegaard

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me,
that man with all his noble qualities...
still bears in his bodily frame
the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
- Charles Darwin

The wise man looks into space,
and does not regard the small as too little,
nor the great as too much;
for he knows that there is no limit to dimensions.
- Lao Tzu

I do not know whether I was then
a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
or whether I am now
a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
- Zhuangzi

Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller

A man who as a physical being
is always turned toward the outside,
thinking that his happiness lies outside him,
finally turns inward and
discovers that the source is within him.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Early to bed and early to rise,
makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
- Benjamin Franklin

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted,
but beholds it as something
unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.
- Albert Schweitzer

Money has never made man happy, nor will it,
there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.
The more of it one has the more one wants.
- Benjamin Franklin

The man who is awakened, lives in such a way
that he leaves no footprints.
- Osho quoting The Buddha

A man should look for what is,
and not for what he thinks should be.
- Albert Einstein

Science gives man knowledge, which is power;
religion gives man wisdom, which is control.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Wisdom Quotes