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A moment’s thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.

A. E. Housman

I do not choose the right word, I get rid of the wrong one.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Agree Discuss Fact Feeling One Liner Right Word Wrong
Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Draw Happiness Meaning Perfection Poetry Understand
Ten thousand times I’ve done my best and all’s to do again.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Effort Myself Time
He would not stay for me, and who can wonder? He would not stay for me to stand and gaze. I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder, And went with half my life about my ways.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Hands Life Myself Stand Stay Ways Wonder
And malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Belief Believe Book Drink Food Greatness Hope Loyal Soul Today Worship Yesterday
The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Average Conservatism Criticism Man
Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low: Square your shoulders, lift your pack And leave your friends and go.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Fire Friend Hollow Light Shoulder
All knots that lovers tie Are tied to sever. Here shall your sweetheart lie, Untrue for ever.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Knot Lover Sever Tie Untrue
Lovers lying two and two Ask not whom they sleep beside, And the bridegroom all night through Never turns him to the bride.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Boundation Feel Lover Lying Night Power Satisfy Self Esteem Sleep Try
I think that to transfuse emotion – not to transmit thought but to set up in the reader’s sense a vibration corresponding to what was felt by the writer – is the peculiar function of poetry.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Emotion Poetry Reader Transmit
That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways where I went and cannot come again.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Content Lost Myself Plain Shine
Housman is one of my heroes and always has been. He was a detestable and miserable man. Arrogant, unspeakably lonely, cruel, and so on, but and absolutely marvellous minor poet, I think, and a great scholar.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Arrogant Greatness Hero Himself Lonely Man Misery Poet
And how am I to face the odds Of man’s bedevilment and God’s? I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Afraid Face God Man Myself World
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Business Life Men Motivation Think Thinking Young
And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Ears Earth Silence Worst
They say my verse is sad: no wonder; Its narrow measure spans Tears of eternity, and sorrow, Not mine. but man’s.
A. E. HOUSMAN

Apostles Culture Equality Grace Men Mindset Pleasure Saint World

A moment’s thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.

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A moment’s thought would have shown him. But a moment is a long time, and thought is a painful process.

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Popular Authors

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