Stephen Vincent Benet Quotes

Quotes about:

• We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Wisdom, Peace, War

  Atlantic Monthly Sept. 1935 "Litany for Dictatorships"

  48 Copy quote

• Life is not lost by dying! Life is lost, Minute by minute, day by dragging day, In all the thousand, small, uncaring ways...

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Life, Time, Dying

  "A Child Is Born". Poetic Christmas drama in one act by Stephen Vincent Benet (first presented on radio as part of the anthology program "Cavalcade of America"), December 21, 1942.

  27 Copy quote

• Our earth is but a small star in a great universe. Yet of it we can make, if we choose, a planet unvexxed by war, untroubled by hunger or fear, undivided by senseless distinctions of race, color or theory.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Stars, War, Race

  Stephen Vincent Benet (2016). “A Child Is Born - A Modern Drama of the Nativity”, p.4, Read Books Ltd

  20 Copy quote

• Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Heart, Knees, Wounded Knee

  "American Names" l. 30 (1927)

  86 Copy quote

• Life was a storm to wander through.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Life, Storm, Wander

  Stephen Vincent Benet, “The Quality Of Courage”

  4 Copy quote

• We thought we were done with these things but we were wrong. We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Wisdom, Power, Done

  'Litany for Dictatorships' (1935)

  7 Copy quote

• We do not fight for the real but for shadows we make. A flag is a piece of cloth and a word is a sound, But we make them something neither cloth nor a sound, Totems of love and hate, black sorcery-stones.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Hate, Real, War

  STEPHEN VINCENT BENET (1928). “JOHN BROWN'S BODY”

  10 Copy quote

• Remember that when you say "I will have non of this exile and this stranger for his face is not like my face and his speech is strange," you have denied America with that word.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  America, Speech, Faces

  12 Copy quote

• Truth is a hard deer to hunt. If you eat too much truth at once, you might die of the truth.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Might, Too Much, Deer

  9 Copy quote

• I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
  I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
  You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
  You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
  I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
  Bury my heart at Wounded Knee

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Lying, Heart, Body

  "American Names" l. 30 (1927)

  54 Copy quote

• Books are not men and yet they are alive. They are man's memory and his aspiration, the link between his present and his past, the tools he builds with.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Memories, Book, Learning

  7 Copy quote

• Honesty is as rare as a man without self-pity.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Honesty, Men, Self

  Stephen Vincent Benét (1990). “John Brown's Body”, Ivan R Dee

  7 Copy quote

• Broad-streeted Richmond . . . The trees in the streets are old trees used to living with people, Family trees that remember your grandfather's name.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Names, People, Tree

  STEPHEN VINCENT BENET (1928). “JOHN BROWN'S BODY”

  9 Copy quote

• Money is sullen And wisdom is sly, But youth is the pollen That blows through the sky And does not ask why.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Blow, Sky, Doe

  STEPHEN VINCENT BENET (1928). “JOHN BROWN'S BODY”

  10 Copy quote

• I've been reading a lot lately about Indian captives. One woman who had been captured by the Indians and made a squaw was resentful when she was rescued because she'd found that there was a lot more work to do as the wife of a white man.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Reading, Men, White Man

  6 Copy quote

• Defeat is a fact and victory can be a fact. If the idea is good, it will survive defeat, it may even survive the victory.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Ideas, Victory, May

  Stephen Vincent Benét (1990). “John Brown's Body”, Ivan R Dee

  7 Copy quote

• Grant us brotherhood, not only for this day but for all our years - a brotherhood not of words but of acts and deeds.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Years, Brotherhood, Deeds

  Stephen Vincent Benet (2016). “A Child Is Born - A Modern Drama of the Nativity”, p.4, Read Books Ltd

  7 Copy quote

• One cannot balance tragedy in the scales Unless one weighs it with the tragic heart.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Heart, Balance, Tragedy

  1928 'John Brown's Body'.

  7 Copy quote

• When my own writing needs a perk, I open Zukofsky and read from "A" - particularly sections "22" and "23." It can be opaque, but I love the intensity.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Writing, Needs, Opaque

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  4 Copy quote

• Technology will never rescue anyone from being a bad poet, but if you're good, it has the potential to do a lot of exciting things.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Technology, Poet, Rescue

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  5 Copy quote

• I admire the attention other writers can give to the world we're walking in.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Giving, Attention, World

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  7 Copy quote

• Ironically the blog has re-opened the essay as a good form for me. I like to look and make commentary! If I sense my essays are good, I try to resubmit to another place in pulp and several of them have been variously published in newspapers and magazines.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Trying, Looks, Magazines

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  7 Copy quote

• Sometimes a sign or a quote is simply interesting by itself and does not require anything beyond being framed on a page.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Interesting, Doe, Pages

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

  5 Copy quote

• God pity us indeed, for we are human, And do not always see, The vision when it comes, the shining change, Or, if we see it, do not follow it, Because it is too hard, too strange, too new, Too unbelievable, too difficult, Warring too much with common, easy ways, And now I know this, standing in this light, Who have been half alive these many years, Brooding on my own sorrow, my own pain, Saying "I am a barren bough. Expect, Nor fruit nor blossom from a barren bough."

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Pain, Light, Years

  "A Child Is Born". Poetic Christmas drama in one act by Stephen Vincent Benet (first presented on radio as part of the anthology program "Cavalcade of America"), December 21, 1942.

  4 Copy quote

• Something begins, begins; Starlit and sunlit, something walks abroad, In flesh and spirit and fire. Something is loosed to change the shaken world.

  Stephen Vincent Benet

  Fire, World, Flesh

  "A Child Is Born". Poetic Christmas drama in one act by Stephen Vincent Benet (first presented on radio as part of the anthology program "Cavalcade of America"), December 21, 1942.

  4 Copy quote

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