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Wallace Stevens
261 quotes
“One ought not to hoard culture. It should be adapted and infused into society as a leaven. Liberality of culture does not mean illiberality of its benefits.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1899 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (June 20, 1899); in Holly Stevens, ed., Souvenirs and Prophecies: The Young Wallace Stevens (New York: Knopf, 1977), ch. 3
“A diary is more or less the work of a man of clay whose hands are clumsy and in whose eyes there is no light.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1899 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (July 26, 1899); in Souvenirs and Prophecies, ch. 3
“Poor, dear, silly Spring, preparing her annual surprise!”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (March 4, 1906), in Souvenirs and Prophecies, ch. 8
“In European thought in general, as contrasted with American, vigor, life and originality have a kind of easy, professional utterance. American — on the other hand, is expressed in an eager amateurish way. A European gives a sense of scope, of survey, of consideration. An American is strained, sensational. One is artistic gold; the other is bullion.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (April 9, 1906); in Holly Stevens, ed., Letters of Wallace Stevens (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), no. 112
“To be young is all there is in the world. The rest is nonsense — and cant. They talk so beautifully about work and having a family and a home (and I do, too, sometimes) — but it's all worry and head-aches and respectable poverty and forced gushing. ... Telling people how nice it is, when, in reality, you would give all of your last thirty years for one of your first thirty. Old people are tremendous frauds.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to his future wife Elsie Moll Kachel (March 21, 1907); in Letters of Wallace Stevens, no. 125
“How full of trifles everything is! It is only one’s thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to his future wife Elsie Moll Kachel (May 16, 1907); in Souvenirs and Prophecies, ch. 9
“Unfortunately there is nothing more inane than an Easter carol. It is a religious perversion of the activity of Spring in our blood.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to his future wife, Elsie Moll Kachel (April 23, 1916); in Letters of Wallace Stevens, no. 202
“The day of the sun is like the day of a king. It is a promenade in the morning, a sitting on the throne at noon, a pageant in the evening.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1920 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (April 20, 1920); in Souvenirs and Prophecies, ch. 6
“Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (December 19, 1935); in Letters of Wallace Stevens, no. 336
“If some really acute observer made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex, people would forget a good deal about sex and find the explanation for everything in egotism.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (January 10, 1936); in Letters of Wallace Stevens, no. 339
“The essential thing in form is to be free in whatever form is used. A free form does not assure freedom. As a form, it is just one more form. So that it comes to this, I suppose, that I believe in freedom regardless of form.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1325 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Note on Poetry" (1937); in William Rose Benét and Norman Holmes Pearson, eds., The Oxford Anthology of American Literature, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford UP, 1938), p. 1325
“Poetry is poetry, and one’s objective as a poet is to achieve poetry precisely as one’s objective in music is to achieve music.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why He Selected 'Domination in Black'", in Whit Burnett, ed., This Is My Best (New York: The Dial Press, 1942), p. 652
“The palm at the end of the mind, Beyond the last thought, rises...A gold-feathered bird Sings in the palm.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Of Mere Being", sts. 1–2, in Holly Stevens, ed., The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play (New York: Vintage, 1972), p. 398
“Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame. Take the moral law and make a nave of it And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus, The conscience is converted into palms, Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: First published in The Dial, no. 73 (July 1922)
“We agree in principle. That's clear. But take The opposing law and make a peristyle, And from the peristyle project a masque Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness, Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last, Is equally converted into palms, Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm, Madame, we are where we began.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This will make widows wince. But fictive things Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I placed a jar in Tennessee And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose upon it, And sprawled around, no longer wild.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It took dominion everywhere. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The soul, he said, is composed Of the external world.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are men of the East, he said, who are the East. There are men of a province who are that province. There are men of a valley who are that valley.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The dress of a woman of Lhassa, in its place is an invisible element of that place made visible.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan Of tan with henna hackles, halt!”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Damned universal cock, as if the sun Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, Catches tigers In red weather.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I heard them cry — the peacocks. Was it a cry against the twilight Or against the leaves themselves Turning in the wind, Turning as the flames Turned in the fire, Turning as the tails of the peacocks Turned in the loud fire, Loud as the hemlocks Full of the cry of the peacocks? Or was it a cry against the hemlocks?”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I saw how the night came, Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks. I felt afraid. And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That strange flower, the sun, Is just what you say. Have it your way.The world is ugly, And the people are sad.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“That tuft of jungle feathers, That animal eye, Is just what you say.That savage of fire, That seed, Have it your way.The world is ugly, And the people are sad.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges, Into twenty villages, Or one man Crossing a single bridge into a village.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This is old song That will not declare itself.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Twenty men crossing a bridge, Into a village, Are Twenty men crossing a bridge Into a village.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The boots of the men clump On the boards of the bridge. The first white wall of the village Rises through fruit-trees. Of what was it I was thinking? So the meaning escapes.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A few things for themselves, Florida, venereal soil, Disclose to the lover.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Donna, donna, dark, Stooping in indigo gown And cloudy constellations, Conceal yourself or disclose Fewest things to the lover — A hand that bears a thick-leaved fruit, A pungent bloom against your shade.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gloomy grammarians in golden gowns, Meekly you keep the mortal rendezvous, Eliciting the still sustaining pomps Of speech which are like music so profound They seem an exaltation without sound.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These Are the music of meet resignation; these The responsive, still sustaining pomps for you To magnify, if in that drifting waste You are to be accompanied by more Than mute bare splendors of the sun and moon.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Just as my fingers on these keys Make music, so the self-same sounds On my spirit make a music, too. Music is feeling, then, not sound; And thus it is that what I feel, Here in this room, desiring you, Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, Is music.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: First published in Others: A Magazine of the New Verse (1915)
“In the green water, clear and warm, Susanna lay. She searched The touch of springs, And found Concealed imaginings. She sighed, For so much melody.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Upon the bank, she stood In the cool Of spent emotions. She felt, among the leaves, The dew Of old devotions.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She walked upon the grass, Still quavering. The winds were like her maids, On timid feet, Fetching her woven scarves, Yet wavering.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A breath upon her hand Muted the night. She turned — A cymbal crashed, Amid roaring horns.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Beauty is momentary in the mind — The fitful tracing of a portal; But in the flesh it is immortal. The body dies; the body's beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminably flowing. So gardens die, their meek breath scenting The cowl of winter, done repenting. So maidens die, to the auroral Celebration of a maiden's choral.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings Of those white elders; but, escaping, Left only Death's ironic scraping. Now, in its immortality, it plays On the clear viol of her memory, And makes a constant sacrament of praise.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams?”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She says, "But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss. "Death is the mother of Beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or an old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The book of moonlight is not written yet.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And as he came he saw that it was spring, A time abhorrent to the nihilist Or searcher for the fecund minimum.”
Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) said by 1955 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source