Robinson Jeffers Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“Imagination, the traitor of the mind, has taken my solitude and slain it.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.148, Stanford University Press
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“Cruelty is a part of nature, at least of human nature, but it is the one thing that seems unnatural to us.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
“Nature knows that people are a tide that swells and in time will ebb, and all their works dissolve ... As for us: We must uncenter our minds from ourselves. We must unhumanize our views a little and become confident as the rock and ocean that we are made from.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : "Carmel Point". Poem by Robinson Jeffers, 1951.
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“Long live freedom and damn the ideologies.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: 1938-1962”, p.26, Stanford University Press
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“There is no reason for amazement: surely one always knew that cultures decay, and life's end is death.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
“The world's in a bad way, my man, And bound to be worse before it mends; Better lie up in the mountain here Four or five centuries, While the stars go over the lonely ocean.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.564, Stanford University Press
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“A little too abstract, a little too wise, It is time for us to kiss the earth again, It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies, Let the rich life run to the roots again.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.499, Stanford University Press
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“It is only a little planet, but how beautiful it is.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, Morley Baer, James Karman (2001). “Stones of the Sur”, p.20, Stanford University Press
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“Poetry is not a civilizer, rather the reverse, for great poetry appeals to the most primitive instincts.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: Poetry 1903-1920, prose, and unpublished writings”, p.425, Stanford University Press
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“The greatest beauty is organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, James Karman, Una Jeffers (2009). “The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers: With Selected Letters of Una Jeffers”, p.65, Stanford University Press
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“And you, America, that passion made you. You were not born to prosperity, you were born to love freedom. You did not say "en masse," you said "independence." But we cannot have all the luxuries and freedom also.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
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“Only the drum is confident, it thinks the world has not changed”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
“This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
“Well: the day is a poem but too much Like one of Jeffers's, crusted with blood and barbaric omens Painful to excess, inhuman as a hawk's cry.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
“The love of freedom has been the quality of Western man.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
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“If you should look for this place after a handful of lifetimes: Perhaps of my planted forest a few May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast cypress, haggard With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils. Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers had the art To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
“Oh heavy change. The world deteriorates like a rotting apple, worms and a skin.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: 1938-1962”, p.418, Stanford University Press
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“We might remember ... not to fear death; it is the only way to be cleansed.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
“God is a lion that comes in the night. God is a hawk gliding among the stars-- If all the stars and the earth, and the living flesh of the night that flows in between them, and whatever is beyond them Were that one bird. He has a bloody beak and harsh talons, he pounces and tears.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
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“Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment, they have had what they wanted.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.753, Stanford University Press
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“Humanity is the start of the race; I say Humanity is the mould to break away from, the crust to break through, the coal to break into fire, The atom to be split.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
“The tides are in our veins, we still mirror the stars, life is your child, but there is in me Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye that watched before there was an ocean.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, Morley Baer, James Karman (2001). “Stones of the Sur”, p.39, Stanford University Press
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“The cold passion for truth hunts in no pack.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: 1938-1962”, p.24, Stanford University Press
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“He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
“Know that however ugly the parts appear the whole remains beautiful... ... the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty of the universe. Love that, not man Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions, or drown in despair when his days darken.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, James Karman, Una Jeffers (2009). “The Collected Letters of Robinson Jeffers: With Selected Letters of Una Jeffers”, p.65, Stanford University Press
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“Meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
“Justice and mercy/ Are human dreams, they do not concern the birds nor the fish nor eternal God.”
-- Robinson Jeffers -
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“Does it matter whether you hate yourself? At least love your eyes that can see, your mind that can hear the music, the thunder of the wings.”
-- Robinson JeffersSource : Robinson Jeffers, “Love The Wild Swan”
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“As for me, I would rather be a worm in a wild apple than a son of man. But we are what we are, and we might remember not to hate any person, for all are vicious; And not to be astonished at any evil, all are deserved; And not to fear death; it is the only way to be cleansed.”
-- Robinson Jeffers
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