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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
Elders
Western
Civilization
Books
Book

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When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.
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You don't want to be victimized by your lesser talents.
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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.
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Thought is just an apprehension of touch.
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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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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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After weeks of watching the roof leak I fixed it tonight by moving a single board
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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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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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The best thing you can do for the planet is to stay home.
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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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Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility.
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Why should the peculiarities of human consciousness be the narrow standard by which other creatures are judged?
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O, ah! The awareness of emptiness brings forth a heart of compassion!
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For those who can, one of the things to do is not to move. To stay put. That doesn't mean don't travel it means have a place and get involved in what can be done in that place. That's the only way we're going to have a representative democracy in America. Nobody stays anywhere long enough to take responsibility for a local community.
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Three-fourths of philosophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering.
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All those years and their moments— Crackling bacon, slamming car doors, Poems tried out on friends, Will be one more archive, One more shaky text.
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Clouds sink down the hills Coffee is hot again. The dog Turns and turns about, stops and sleeps.
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I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.
Gary Snyder
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When making an axe handle the pattern is not far off.
Gary Snyder