Quote

Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.

John Masefield

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Masefield
Age: 88 †
Born: 1878
Born: June 1
Died: 1967
Died: May 12
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
County of Herefordshire
John Edward Masefield
Common
Sense
Mixture
Mixtures
Uncommon
Poetry

More quotes by John Masefield

Image
When the last sea is sailed and last shallow charted, When the last field is reaped and the last harvest stored, When the last fire is out and the last guest departed Grant the last prayer that I pray, Be good to me, O Lord.
John Masefield
Image
I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain.
John Masefield
Image
Love is a flame to burn out human wills, Love is a flame to set the will on fire, Love is a flame to cheat men into mire.
John Masefield
Image
From '41 to '51I was my folk's contrary sonI bit my father's hand right throughAnd broke my mother's heart in two.
John Masefield
Image
O lovely lily clean, O lily springing green, O lily bursting white, Dear lily of delight, Spring in my heart agen That I may flower to men.
John Masefield
Image
It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills, And April's in the West wind, and daffodils.
John Masefield
Image
Life's battle is a conquest for the strong The meaning shows in the defeated thing.
John Masefield
Image
It ought to have gangsters, and aeroplanes and a lot of automatic pistols.
John Masefield
Image
Man cannot call the brimming instant back Time's an affair of instants spun to days If man must make an instant gold, or black, Let him, he may but Time must go his ways. Life may be duller for an instant's blaze. Life's an affair of instants spun to years, Instants are only cause of all these tears.
John Masefield
Image
In the dark room where I began My mother's life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common earth. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir, But through the death of some of her.
John Masefield
Image
God dropped a spark down into everyone, And if we find and fan it to a blaze, It'll spring up and glow, like--like the sun, And light the wandering out of stony ways.
John Masefield
Image
The days that make us happy make us wise
John Masefield
Image
Man with his burning soul Has but an hour of breath To build a ship of Truth In which his soul may sail- Sail on the sea of death. For death takes toll Of beauty, courage, youth, Of all but Truth.
John Masefield
Image
There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.
John Masefield
Image
I have seen flowers come in stony places And kind things done by men with ugly faces, And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races, So I trust, too.
John Masefield
Image
On the long dusty ribbon of the long city street, The pageant of life is passing me on multitudinous feet, With a word here of the hills, and a song there of the sea And-the great movement changes-the pageant passes me.
John Masefield
Image
Man's body is faulty, his mind untrustworthy, but his imagination has made him remarkable.
John Masefield
Image
Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.
John Masefield
Image
I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
John Masefield
Image
God warms his hands at man's heart when he prays.
John Masefield