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Intelligence recognizes what has happened. Genius recognizes what will happen.

John Ciardi

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John Ciardi
Age: 69 †
Born: 1916
Born: June 24
Died: 1986
Died: March 30
Journalist
Linguist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
John Anthony Ciardi
Recognizes
Intelligence
Genius
Happen
Happened
Happens

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Who could believe an ant in theory? A giraffe in blueprint? Ten thousand doctors of what's possible Could reason half the jungle out of being.
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Spontaneous is what you get after the seventeenth draft.
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It is easy enough to praise men for the courage of their conviction. I wish I could teach the sad young of this mealy generation the courage of their convictions.
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A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in the students.
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Fermentation and civilization are inseparable.
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A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.
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I have one head that wants to be good, And one that wants to be bad. And always, as soon as I get up, One of my heads is sad.
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The constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.
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Patience is the art of caring slowly.
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You have to fall in love with hanging around words.
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Within a single scene, it seems to be unwise to have access to the inner reflections of more than one character. The reader generally needs a single character as the means of perception, as the character to whom the events are happening, as the character with whom he is to empathize in order to have the events of the writing happen to him.
John Ciardi
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Conviction is possible only in a world more primitive than ours can be perceived to be. A man can achieve a simply gnomic conviction only by ignoring the radical describers of his environment, or by hating them, as convinced men have hated, say, Darwin and Freud, as agents of some devil.
John Ciardi
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A savage is simply a human organism that has not received enough news from the human race.
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Honesty: The ability to resist small temptations.
John Ciardi
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The thing about cats, as you may find, Is that no one knows what they have in mind.
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I'm smiled out, talked out, quipped out, socialized so far from any being, I need the weight of mortal silences to get realized back into myself.
John Ciardi
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Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.
John Ciardi
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A university is a reading and discussion club. If students knew how to use the library, they wouldn't need the rest of the buildings. The faculty's job, in great part, is to teach students how to use a library in a living way. All a student should really need is access to the library and a place to sleep.
John Ciardi
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The public library is the most dangerous place in town
John Ciardi
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The day will happen whether or not you get up.
John Ciardi