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We are afraid that we have not lived. We are not afraid of dying.

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
Lived
Dying
Afraid

More quotes by Allen Tate

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The only real evidence that any critic may bring before his gaze is the finished poem.
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But in our age the appeal to authority is weak, and I am of my age.
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According to its doctors, my one intransigent desire is to have been a Confederate general, and because I could not or would not become anything else, I set up for poet and beg an to invent fictions about the personal ambitions that my society has no use for.
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What is the poem, after it is written? That is the question. Not where it came from or why.
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Culture is the study of perfection, and the constant effort to achieve it.
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For some reason most critics have a hard time fixing their minds directly under their noses, and before they see the object that is there they use a telescope upon the horizon to see where it came from.
Allen Tate
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Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.
Allen Tate
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Let us lie down once more by the breathing side Of Ocean, where our live forefathers sleep As if the Known Sea still were a month wide-- Atlantis howls but is no longer steep!
Allen Tate
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Walk in this faithless grass with studious tread, Lest mice, weasels, germane beasts, too soon The tall hat and eyes, the fierce feet, for dead Descry, and fix you prone in their revelling moon.
Allen Tate
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I believe the term modulation denotes in music the uninterrupted shift from one key to another: I do not know the term for change of rhythm without change of measure.
Allen Tate
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Last night I fled until I came To streets where leaking casements dripped Stale lamplight from the corpse of flame A nervous window bled.
Allen Tate
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I say that what one loves is best: The midnight fastness of the heart.
Allen Tate
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A poem may be an instance of morality, of social conditions, of psychological history it may instance all its qualities, but never one of them alone, nor any two or three never less than all.
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The day's at end and there's nowhere to go, Draw to the fire, even this fire is dying Get up and once again politely lying Invite the ladies toward the mistletoe.
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Experience means conflict, our natures being what they are, and conflict means drama.
Allen Tate
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Poets are mysterious, but a poet when all is said is not much more mysterious than a banker.
Allen Tate
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The innocent mansion of a panther's heart!
Allen Tate
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William Blake cursed the flesh for a clod, Yet of some of his sayings we Moderns have heard tell: 'The nakedness of woman is the work of God', Or that title--The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Allen Tate
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The mission for the day is to encourage students to think beyond traditional career opportunities, prepare for future careers and entrance into the workplace.
Allen Tate
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Genetic theories, I gather, have been cherished academically with detachment.
Allen Tate