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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.

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
Revolution
Individual
Social
Void
Self
Insight
Basic
Mercy
East
West

More quotes by Gary Snyder

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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.
Gary Snyder
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Revolutionary consciousness is to be found among the most ruthlessly exploited masses: animals, trees, water, air, grasses
Gary Snyder
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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.
Gary Snyder
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A great poet does not express his or her self he expresses all of our selves.
Gary Snyder
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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
Gary Snyder
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Zen aims at freedom but its practice is disciplined.
Gary Snyder
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Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.
Gary Snyder
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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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Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility.
Gary Snyder
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Thought is just an apprehension of touch.
Gary Snyder
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The other side of the sacred is the sight of your beloved in the underworld, dripping with maggots.
Gary Snyder
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Sometime in the last ten years the best brains of the Occident discovered to their amazement that we live in an Environment. This discovery has been forced on us by the realization that we are approaching the limits of something.
Gary Snyder
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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.
Gary Snyder
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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.
Gary Snyder
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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.
Gary Snyder
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You should really know what the complete natural world of your region is and know what all its interactions are and how you are interacting with it yourself. This is just part of the work of becoming who you are, where you are.
Gary Snyder
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There are those who love to get dirty and fix things. They drink coffee at dawn, beer after work. And those who stay clean, just appreciate things. At breakfast they have milk and juice at night. There are those who do both, they drink tea.
Gary Snyder
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To work on behalf of the wild is to restore culture
Gary Snyder
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You don't want to be victimized by your lesser talents.
Gary Snyder
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All that we did was human, stupid, easily forgiven, Not quite right.
Gary Snyder