January 2011
32 posts
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“I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those...”
– Flannery O’Connor
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“The World is Too Much with Us” by William Wordsworth This world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her boson to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for...
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“To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to...”
– e. e. cummings
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“Dance Russe” by William Carlos Williams
If when my wife sleeping and the baby and Kathleen are sleeping and the sun is a flame-white disc in silken mists above shining trees— if I in my north room dance naked, grotesquely before my mirror waving my shirt round my head and singing softly to myself: “I am lonely, lonely I was born to be lonely, I am best so!” If I...
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“The Next Poem” by Dana Gioia
How much better it seems now than when it is finally done— the unforgettable first line, the cunning way the stanzas run. The rhymes soft-spoken and suggestive are barely audible at first, an appetite not yet acknowledged like the inkling of a thirst.
While gradually the form appears as each line is coaxed aloud— the architecture of a room...
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“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heart-ache when...”
– Henry Miller in Sexus (via melancholynotes)
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“When we were children, we used to think that when we grew up we would no longer...”
– Madeleine L’Engle (from theantidote & 365daysyoga)
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WatchTake the 20 minutes and watch this video for some profound ideas about vulnerability, courage, and living wholeheartedly.
(Via Joshua Longbrake)
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“You know that something totally new, truly unique, is happening within you. It...”
– Henri Nouwen, from The Inner Voice of Love
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“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling,...”
– C. S. Lewis, from Surprised by Joy
(via It’s a Beautiful Gospel)
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“Then I said something. I said, Suppose, just suppose, nothing had ever happened. Suppose this was for the first time. Just suppose. It doesn’t hurt to suppose. Say none of the other had ever happened. You know what I mean? Then what? I said.
Wes fixed his eyes on me. He said, Then I suppose we’d have to be somebody else if that was the case. Somebody we’re not. I...
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“Our greatest protection is self-knowledge, and to avoid the delusion that we are...”
– Gregory of Nyssa, Commentary on the Song of Songs (via wesleyhill)
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“Poetry is a life-cherishing force. And it requires a vision—a faith, to...”
– Mary Oliver, from A Poetry Handbook
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“I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of...”
– Sonnet 17: Pablo Neruda (via luke-williams)
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“To any writer: Teach yourself to work in uncertainty. Many writers are anxious...”
– Bernard Malamud (via theparisreview)
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”All the Miles” by Sandra McCracken
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“The Raising of Lazarus” by Rainer Maria Rilke Yes, it was necessary for this common sort, since they required signs that screamed. Yet he dreamt how for Martha and Mary it would be enough simply to see that he could. But none of them believed, they all said to him: Lord, why come now? And so he went, to do the unallowed to peaceful Nature. In anger. His eyes almost shut, he asked...
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“Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a...”
– Alice Walker (via libraryland)
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“Here’s what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird,” said May Kasahara. “Everybody’s born...”
– Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (via liquidnight)
Oh, how I love Murakami.
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Dead Presidents: Presidential Quote of the Day:... →
deadpresidents:
“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who...
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“This business of having to feel a particular way or to feel a sense of absolute...”
– David Dark, from The Sacredness of Questioning Everything
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“Ragged Island” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
There, there where those black spruces crowd To the edge of the precipitous cliff, Above your boat, under the eastern wall of the island; And no wave breaks; as if All had been done, and long ago, that needed Doing; and the cold tide, unimpeded By shoal or shelving ledge, moves up and down, Instead of in and out; And there is no driftwood...
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“Goodness is not the coin with which we anxiously pay for God‘s love…’Being good’...”
– Archbishop Desmund and the Rev. Mpho Tutu
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“A prayer for major life transition:
Lord, help me now to unclutter my life,...”
– Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
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“January” by Garrison Keillor
Another year gone and the old man with the scythe Is moving closer. He hasn’t been subtle, has he. Too many good people gone, and I could sit and cry For them—except that you look exceptionally snazzy And sexy despite the miles on your odometer, As if you have a few more aces up your sleeve. Maybe you were born under a lucky comet or Maybe...