Emily > Emily's Quotes

“Be glad. Be good. Be brave.”
― Eleanor Hodgman Porter

“And I wish that I was made of stone
So that I would not have to see
A beauty impossible to define
A beauty impossible to believe

A beauty impossible to endure
The blood imparted in little sips
The smell of you still on my hands
As I bring the cup up to my lips

No God up in the sky
No devil beneath the sea
Could do the job that you did, baby
Of bringing me to my knees”
― Nick Cave

“You've got to understand your limitations. It's your limitations that make you the wonderful disaster you most probably are.”
― Nick Cave

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.”
― Isak Dinesen, Seven Gothic Tales

“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.”
― Mary Oliver, Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays

“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.”
― George Santayana

“There are books in which the footnotes, or the comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin, are more interesting than the text. The world is one of those books.”
― George Santayana

“Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.”
― George Santayana

“My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.”
― George Santayana, Soliloquies in England & Later Soliloquies

“Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”
― George Santayana

“There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.”
― George Santayana

“We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, remembering that it was once all that was humanly possible.”
― George Santayana

“Never build your emotional life on the weaknesses of others.”
― George Santayana

“I think here I will leave you. It has come to seem
there is no perfect ending.
Indeed, there are infinite endings.
Or perhaps, once one begins,
there are only endings.”
― Louise Glück, Faithful and Virtuous Night

“I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
― Rumi

“What escapes you, never leaves you. Everything is
a journey of trust. You have to have the kind of faith
the flame has for the candle, that the bird has for its wings.
Otherwise, our words have no destinations.
Otherwise, our words are snakes that swallow our souls.

—Richard Jackson, from “Isaac’s Consent,” Out of Place: Poems (Ashland Poetry Press, 2014)”
― Richard Jackson, Out of Place

“Only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses. Nobody, not even the rain has such small hands.”
― E.E. Cummings

“listen: there’s a hell
of a good universe next door; let’s go”
― E.E. Cummings

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams

“All serious daring starts from within.”
― Eudora Welty, On Writing

“The world's perverse, but it could be worse.”
― Mona Van Duyn

“May the stars carry your sadness away,
May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,
May hope forever wipe away your tears,
And, above all, may silence make you strong.”
― Dan George

“It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal. That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined. Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and, like love, grief is non-negotiable.”
― Nick Cave