Poems List

In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but its effects.

It seems to me that it is these extremists who are advocating a soft approach. Their oversimplifications and their baseless generalizations reflect the softness of those who cannot bear to face the burdens of a continuing struggle against a powerful and resourceful enemy. A truly tough approach, in my judgment, is one which accepts the challenge of communism with the courage and determination to meet it with every instrumentality of foreign policypolitical and economic as well as military, and with the willingness to see the struggle through as far into the future as may be necessary. Those who seek to meet the challengeor, in reality, to evade itby bold adventures abroad and witch hunts at home are the real devotees of softnessthe softness of seeking escape from painful realities by resort to illusory panaceas.

It is amazing how soon one becomes accustomed to the sound of ones voice, when forced to repeat a speech five or six times a day. As election day approaches, the size of the crowds grows; they are more responsive and more interested; and one derives a certain exhilaration from that which, only a few weeks before, was intensely painful. This is one possible explanation of unlimited debate in the Senate.

The lover steals a kiss. He incurs life imprisonment. (L'amoureux vole un baiser. Il encourt perpétuité)

I see heaven's glories shine and faith shines equal...

Having leveled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home.

A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly.

I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.

Love is like the wild rose-briar; Friendship like the holly-tree. The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms, but which will bloom most constantly?

A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.

Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living.

The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him, they crush those beneath them.

Stay calm and assertive

Vain are the thousand creeds that move men's hearts, unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, or idlest froth amid the boundless main.

Rules, boundaries, and limitations

Exercise, Discipline, then Affection.

Revenge tightens the heart as much as the jaw. (La vengeance serre le cœur Autant que la mâchoire)

Where the apple reddens never pry -- lest we lose our Edens, Eve and I.

Inscribe all human effort with one word, artistry's haunting curse, the Incomplete!

Ambition is not what man does... but what man would do.

My sun sets to rise again.

Never the time and the place and the loved one all together!

So free we seem, so fettered we are!

Stung by the splendor of a sudden thought.