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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
Books
Book
Elders
Western
Civilization

More quotes by Gary Snyder

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A reading is a kind of communion. The poet articulates the semi-known for the tribe.
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Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility.
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You don't want to be victimized by your lesser talents.
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After weeks of watching the roof leak I fixed it tonight by moving a single board
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Burning the small dead branches broke from beneath thick spreading whitebark pine. A hundred summers snowmelt rock and air hiss in a twisted bough.
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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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My Grandmother standing wordless fifteen minutes Between rows of loganberries, clippers poised in her hand.
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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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Thought is just an apprehension of touch.
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Today we are aware as never before of the plurality of human life-styles and possibilities, while at the same time being tied, like in an old silent movie, to a runaway locomotive rushing headlong toward a very singular catastrophe
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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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The other side of the sacred is the sight of your beloved in the underworld, dripping with maggots.
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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.
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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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A great poet does not express his or her self he expresses all of our selves.
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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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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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When the mind is exhausted of images, it invents its own.
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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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