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In Western Civilization, our elders are books.

Gary Snyder

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Gary Snyder
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: May 8
Environmentalist
Poet
Trade Unionist
Translator
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Gary Snyder
Western
Civilization
Books
Book
Elders

More quotes by Gary Snyder

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All this new stuff goes on top turn it over, turn it over wait and water down from the dark bottom turn it inside out let it spread through Sift down even. Watch it sprout. A mind like compost.
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True affluence is not needing anything.
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You run into people who want to write poetry who don't want to read anything in the tradition. That's like wanting to be a builder but not finding out what different kinds of wood you use.
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I hold the most archaic values on earth ... the fertility of the soul, the magic of the animals, the power-vision in solitude.... the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.
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In the 40,000 year time scale we're all the same people. We're all equally primitive, give or take two or three thousand years here or a hundred years there.
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When making an axe handle the pattern is not far off.
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What is any religion? A little ritual, a little superstition, and some magic. It's not a strictly spiritual affair it has psychological roles to fulfill. You might not want it to be a religion based on your own experience but that's like wanting to clean up your dreams
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Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility.
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Gratitude to the Great Sky who holds billions of stars - and goes yet beyond that - beyond all powers, and thoughts and yet is within us - Grandfather Space. The Mind is his Wife
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Revolutionary consciousness is to be found among the most ruthlessly exploited masses: animals, trees, water, air, grasses
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When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.
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I never find words right away. Poems for me always begin with images and rhythms, shapes, feelings, forms, dances in the back of my mind.
Gary Snyder
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My Grandmother standing wordless fifteen minutes Between rows of loganberries, clippers poised in her hand.
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The mercy of the West has been social revolution the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void.
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Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.
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Wildness is not just the preservation of the world, it is the world
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Being the Stream Meditation is not just a rest or retreat from the turmoil of the stream or the impurity of the world. It is a way of being the stream, so that one can be at home in both the white water and the eddies. Meditation may take one out of the world, but it also puts one totally into it.
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O, ah! The awareness of emptiness brings forth a heart of compassion!
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Doom scenarios, even though they might be true, are not politically or psychologically effective. The first step . . . is to make us love the world rather than to make us fear for the end of the world.
Gary Snyder
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Thought is just an apprehension of touch.
Gary Snyder