“Hate is a fear, and fear is rot That cankers root and fruit alike, Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not, Strike with no madness when you strike.”

If I were a young man With my bones full of marrow, Oh, if I were a bold young man Straight as an arrow, I’d store up no virtue For Heaven’s distant plain, I’d live at ease as I did please And sin once again.

No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.

The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate with green the Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But we are gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of Her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

Any honest housewife would sort them out,/ Having a nose for fish, an eye for apples.

So when I’m killed, don’t wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, don’t wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You’ll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you’ve read.

Before an attack, the platoon pools all its available cash and the survivors divide it up afterwards. Those who are killed can’t complain, the wounded would have given far more than that to escape as they have, and the unwounded regard the money as a consolation prize for still being here.

Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any relationship that seemed inconsistent with poetic principles; which has sometimes won me the reputation of an eccentric.

Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart’s desire.

Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.

She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow.

The gas-cylinders had by this time been put into position on the front line. A special order came round imposing severe penalties on anyone who used any word but “accessory” in speaking of the gas. This was to keep it secret, but the French civilians knew all about the scheme long before this.

If I were a girl, I’d despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.

Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark a shining space With the grave ‘s narrowness, though not its peace.

Patriotism, in the trenches, was too remote a sentiment, and at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisoners. A new arrival who talked patriotism would soon be told to cut it out.

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher Swept off his tall hat to the Squire’s own daughter, So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly Singing about her head, as she rode by.

In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.

The Russian people and Russian culture are the linchpin, the glue that binds together this unique civilization.

Producing an animation series merely to fill time slots in the broadcast schedule is like generating cultural pollution.

A youthful heart does not tolerate injustice and cannot bow to a “throw-away culture” nor give in to the globalization of indifference.

Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people.

I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.

Those who care for the little ones are on God’s side and defeat the culture of waste.

No one chooses which culture to be born into or can be blamed for how that culture evolved in past centuries.

A culture is not the anonymous product of undifferentiate d masses, but the sum of the intellectual achievements of individual men.