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Kindle Notes & Highlights
The meek might inherit the earth, but they don’t get into Harvard; know what I mean?”
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a flying: And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.”
“Did most of them not wait until it was too late before making their lives into even one iota of what they were capable?
“Carpe Diem,” Keating whispered loudly. “Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary.”
savor language and words because no matter what anyone tells you, words and ideas have the power to change the world.
One reads poetry because he is a member of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion! Medicine, law, banking—these are necessary to sustain life. But poetry, romance, love, beauty? These are what we stay alive for!
That you are here—That life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse!”
“What will your verse be?”
“‘I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.’” He skipped through the text. “‘I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life!’”
How do we, like Walt, permit our own true natures to speak? How do we strip ourselves of prejudices, habits, influences? The answer, my dear lads, is that we must constantly endeavor to find a new point of view.”
“If you’re sure about something,” he said as they slowly returned to their seats, “force yourself to think about it another way, even if you know it’s wrong or silly. When you read, don’t consider only what the author thinks, but take time to consider what you think. “You must strive to find your own voice, boys, and the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all.
“And don’t limit poetry to the word. Poetry can be found in music, a photograph, in the way a meal is prepared—anything with the stuff of revelation in it. It can exist in the most everyday things but it must never, never be ordinary. By all means, write about the sky or a girl’s smile, but when you do, let your poetry conjure up salvation day, doomsday, any day. I don’t care, as long as it enlightens us, thrills us and—if it’s inspired—makes us feel a bit immortal.”
What it demonstrates is how
difficult it is for any of us to listen to our own voice or maintain our own beliefs in the presence of others. If any of you think you would have marched differently, then ask yourself why you were clapping. Lads, there is a great need in all of us to be accepted, but you must trust what is unique or different about yourself, even if it is odd or unpopular. As Frost said, “‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,/And that has made all the difference.’”
“So, if you want to raise a confirmed atheist,” McAllister observed, “give him a rigid religious upbringing. Works every time.”
