Robinson Jeffers Quotes - Page 2

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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

  Fire, Race, Break Through

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.125, Stanford University Press

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• ...Science and mathematics Run parallel to reality, they symbolize it, they squint at it, They never touch it: consider what an explosion Would rock the bones of men into little white fragments and unsky the world If any mind for a moment touch truth.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Running, Truth, Reality

  Robinson Jeffers, “The Silent Shepherds”

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• O that our souls could scale a height like this, A mighty mountain swept o'er by the bleak Keen winds of heaven; and, standing on that peak Above the blinding clouds of prejudice, Would we could see all truly as it is; The calm eternal truth would keep us meek.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Clouds, Wind, Heaven

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: Poetry 1903-1920, prose, and unpublished writings”, p.6, Stanford University Press

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• It seems to me that this whole alone is worthy of the deeper sort of love; and that there is peace, freedom, I might say a kind of salvation, in turning one's affections outward toward this one God, rather than inwards on one's self, or on humanity, or on human imaginations and abstractions - the world of the spirits.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Peace, Self, Imagination

  Robinson Jeffers, Albert Gelpi (2003). “The Wild God of the World: An Anthology of Robinson Jeffers”, p.189, Stanford University Press

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• Oh heavy change. The world deteriorates like a rotting apple, worms and a skin.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Change, Apples, Skins

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: 1938-1962”, p.418, Stanford University Press

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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

  Art, Home, Dark

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.181, Stanford University Press

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• civilization is a transient sickness.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Civilization, Sickness, Illness

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: 1928-1938”, p.158, 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

  Freedom, Passion, Luxury

  Robinson Jeffers, Albert Gelpi (2003). “The Wild God of the World: An Anthology of Robinson Jeffers”, p.154, Stanford University Press

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• Pleasure is the carrot dangled to lead the ass to market; or the precipice.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Ass, Pleasure, Carrots

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• Corruption never has been compulsory; when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Lying, Cities, Feet

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.23, Stanford University Press

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• This wild swan of a world is no hunter's game.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Art, Swans, Games

  1935 Solstice,'Love the Wild Swan'.

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• He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Strong, Pain, Incapacity

  1928 Cawdor,'Hurt Hawks'.

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• Shiva... is the only hunter that will ever catch the wild swan; The prey she will take last is the wild white swan of the beauty of things. Then she will be alone, pure destruction, achieved and supreme, Empty darkness under the death-tent wings. She will build a nest of the swan's bones and hatch a new brood, Hang new heavens with new birds, all be renewed.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Swans, Wings, White

  Robinson Jeffers, “Shiva”

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• If millions are born millions must die.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Born, Dies, Ifs

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: Textual evidence and commentary”, p.641, Stanford University Press

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• 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

  God, Stars, Night

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: 1938-1962”, p.292, Stanford University Press

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• We might remember ... not to fear death; it is the only way to be cleansed.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Death, Might, Way

  Robinson Jeffers, Albert Gelpi (2003). “The Wild God of the World: An Anthology of Robinson Jeffers”, p.172, Stanford University Press

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• They import and they consume reality.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Reality, Imports

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.175, Stanford University Press

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• Death's a fierce meadowlark: but to die having made / Something more equal to the centuries / Than muscle and bone, is mostly to shed weakness.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Weakness, Fierce, Bones

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.20, Stanford University Press

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• We have to live like people in a web of knives, we mustn't reach out our hands or we get them gashed.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Hands, Knives, People

  Robinson Jeffers (1970). “Cawdor, a Long Poem: Medea, After Euripides”, p.52, New Directions Publishing

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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

  Culture, Decay, Reason

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: 1928-1938”, p.518, Stanford University Press

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• Only the drum is confident, it thinks the world has not changed

  Robinson Jeffers

  Change, Music, Confidence

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: 1928-1938”, p.158, Stanford University Press

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• Meteors are not needed less than mountains:
  shine, perishing republic.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Shining, Mountain, Republic

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.23, Stanford University Press

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• Truly men hate the truth; they'd liefer meet a tiger on the road.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Hate, Men, Tigers

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (2001). “The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers”, p.579, Stanford University Press

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• I hate my verses, every line, every word. Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try One grass-blade's curve, or the throat of one bird That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky. Oh cracked and twilight mirrors ever to catch One color, one glinting flash, of the splendor of things.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Hate, Twilight, Curves

  Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (1988). “The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: 1928-1938”, p.410, Stanford University Press

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• When the sun shouts and people abound One thinks there were the ages of stone and the age of bronze And the iron age; iron the unstable metal; Steel made of iron, unstable as his mother; the tow-ered-up cities Will be stains of rust on mounds of plaster. Roots will not pierce the heaps for a time, kind rains will cure them, Then nothing will remain of the iron age And all these people but a thigh-bone or so, a poem Stuck in the world's thought, splinters of glass In the rubbish dumps, a concrete dam far off in the mountain.

  Robinson Jeffers

  Mother, Rain, Thinking

  Robinson Jeffers (1965). “Selected poems”, Vintage

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