Month: February 2005

At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.

I can keep ten poems and twenty theories in my head at once but I can only think of one practical thing at a time.

The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

Knowledge consists of knowing that a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom consists of not putting it in a fruit salad.

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.

Style is the feather that helps the arrow fly, not the one that you put in your hat.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Inland

People that build their houses inland,
People that buy a plot of ground
Shaped like a house, and build a house there,
Far from the sea-board, far from the sound

Of water sucking the hollow ledges,
Tons of water striking the shore —
What do they long for, as I long for
One salt smell of the sea once more?

People the waves have not awakened,
Spanking the boats at the harbor’s head,
What do they long for, as I long for, —
Starting up in my inland bed,

Beating the narrow walls, and finding
Neither a window nor a door,
Screaming to God for death by drowning —
One salt taste of the sea once more?

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

Go not for every grief to the physician, nor for every quarrel to the lawyer, nor for every thirst to the pot.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

The Ant

The ant has made himself illustrious
Through constant industry industrious.
So what?
Would you be calm and placid
If you were full of formic acid?

Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.

Paradise is somewhere and not anywhere, is something and not anything.

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles; and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.

What is the use of a newborn baby?

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

Sometimes it’s easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

Winter

When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian’s nose looks red and raw
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.

Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?

Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.