The life of a poet lies not merely in the finite language-dance of expression but in the nearly infinite combinations of perception and memory combined with the sensitivity to what is perceived and remembered.

The pure playfulness of certain wholly whimsical portions of (Charles) Cros’s work should not obscure the fact that at the center of some of his most beautiful poems a revolver is leveled straight at us.

What stirs lyrical poets to their finest flights is neither the delight of the senses nor the fruitful contentment of the settled couple; not the satisfaction of love, but its passion. And passion means suffering.

It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.

Le Poëte est semblable au prince des nuéesQui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.

This dream the world is having about itselfincludes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,a groove in the grass my father showed us allone day while meadowlarks were trying to tellsomething better about to happen.

To transform a grimace into a sound sounds impossible, yet it is possible to transform a vision into music, to go outside an enslaved personality, to become impersonal by transforming into sand, into water, into light.

GIVING - Applied tithing is so rewarding. When you give away your time, talent, and treasures you create a huge shift in your prosperity consciousness. So start where you are as you reach for where it is you want to be.

A poet, any real poet, is simply an alchemist who transmutes his cynicism regarding human beings into an optimism regarding the moon, the stars, the heavens, and the flowers, to say nothing of the spring, love, and dogs.

We don’t know anything about silent sages, buried knowledge, the eye of the mute poet, serene seers, yet how many talkative destroyers, prophets and ideologues, teachers and beautifiers there are on the other side.

Therefore, since the world has stillMuch good, but much less good than ill,And while the sun and moon endureLuck's a chance, but trouble's sure,I'd face it as a wise man would,And train for ill and not for good.

A poet has to be a bit childlike at heart, and in that sense all the romantic stereotypes about poets being "eternal children", etc, are all accurate. They believe, whatever they may say, that art and words can change the world.

If you were destined to be a poet, then you won't brainstorm for lines that rhymes. If you were destined to be a celebrity, then you shouldn't start searching for fans. If you are truly a god, then let others worship you!

I live there...where the birds are infiniteeverywherewhere they fleeit's a place your eyes can wanderbut never seeWhere everyone accepts me,Without any pretenseIt's a place your mind can picturebut never really comprehend.

But that so many scholars are barbarians does not much matter so long as a few of them are ready to help with their specialized knowledge the few independent thinkers, that is to say the poets, who try to to keep civilization alive.