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Men expect too much, do too little.

Allen Tate

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Allen Tate
Age: 79 †
Born: 1899
Born: November 19
Died: 1979
Died: February 9
Author
Literary Critic
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Winchester
Kentucky
John Orley Allen Tate
Action
Littles
Little
Much
Men
Expect

More quotes by Allen Tate

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What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why.
Allen Tate
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For often at Church I've seen the stained high glass Pour out the Virgin and Saints, twist and untwist The mortal youth of Christ astride an ass.
Allen Tate
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POET If not in a place, where are the People weeping? LIBERAL They creep weeping in the face, not place. POET Is it something with which we may cope The weeping, the creeping, the peepee-ing, the peeping?
Allen Tate
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The Spring I seek is in a new face only.
Allen Tate
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So face with calm that heritage And earn contempt before the age.
Allen Tate
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I have felt darkness lead me by the hand Over the hill to greet the singing dawn.
Allen Tate
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And I have seen long fingers that would stare With fiery eyes, and then the eyes would crawl Deftly across the counterpane and fall Soundless, with a wink of mild despair.
Allen Tate
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Venus knows country matters: country knows Venus: For Love, Dione's boy, was born on the farm.
Allen Tate
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So the poet, who wants to be something that he cannot be, and is a failure in plain life, makes up fictitious versions of his predicament that are interesting even to other persons because nobody is a perfect automobile salesman.
Allen Tate
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In the cold morning the rested street stands up To greet the clerk who saunters down the world.
Allen Tate
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Men cannot live forever But they must die forever.
Allen Tate
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The torrent of the reaching shade Broke shadow into all its parts, What then had been of shadow made Found exigence in fits and starts.
Allen Tate
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The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
Allen Tate
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Row after row with strict impunity The headstones yield their names to the element, The wind whirrs without recollection.
Allen Tate
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Culture is the study of perfection, and the constant effort to achieve it.
Allen Tate
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Among friends one has the privilege of saying nothing the civility consists in the assumption that one's silence will be civilly understood. I can imagine a small gathering of friends who say nothing all evening: they recoil from saying anything that the others don't want to hear and their silence would be the subtlest courtesy.
Allen Tate
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Punctilious abyss, the yawn of space Come once a day to suffocate the sight.
Allen Tate
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All the sea-gods are dead. You, Venus, come home To your salt maidenhead.
Allen Tate
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Our loss put six feet under ground Is measured by the magnolia's root Our gain's the intellectual sound Of death's feet round a weedy tomb.
Allen Tate
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The dreary flies, lazy and casual, Stick to the ceiling, buzz along the wall. O heart, the spider shuffles from the mould Weaving, between the pinks and grapes, his pall.
Allen Tate