I was thinking, “So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I’ll be able to make people read my books now.
ROBERT GRAVESEntrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes.
More Robert Graves Quotes
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There’s a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility.
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No honest theologian therefore can deny that his acceptance of Jesus as Christ logically binds every Christian to a belief in reincarnation – in Elias case (who was later John the Baptist) at least.
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When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You’ll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.
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The gift of independence once granted cannot be lightly taken away again.
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The poet’s first rule must be never to bore his readers; and his best way of keeping this rule is never to bore himself-which, of course, means to write only when he has something urgent to say.
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Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark a shining space With the grave ‘s narrowness, though not its peace.
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I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against fate.
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We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.
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For I now realize that what overcame me that evening was a sudden awareness of the power of intuition, the supra-logic that cuts out all routine processes of thought and leaps straight from problem to answer.
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Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision, Blotting out reason.
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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.
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Love at first sight’some say misnaming Discovery of twinned helplessness Against the huge tug of procreation. But friendship at first sight? This also Catches fiercely at the surprised heart So that the cheek blanches then blushes.
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The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
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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.
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The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.
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