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One does not find oneself by pursuing one's self, but on the contrary by pursuing something else and learning through discipline or routine. . . who one is and wants to be.

May Sarton

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May Sarton
Age: 83 †
Born: 1912
Born: May 3
Died: 1995
Died: July 16
Diarist
Poet
Writer
May Eleanor Sarton
Learning
Else
Doe
Pursuing
Find
Routine
Self
Contrary
Something
Oneself
Discipline
Wants

More quotes by May Sarton

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The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind.
May Sarton
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I sometimes think men don't 'hear' very well, if I take your meaning to be 'understand what is going on in a person.' That's what makes them so restful. Women wear each other out with their everlasting touching of the nerve.
May Sarton
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Inside my mother's death / I lay and could not breathe.
May Sarton
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The more our bodies fail us, the more naked and more demanding is the spirit, the more open and loving we can become if we are not afraid of what we are and of what we feel. I am not a phoenix yet, but here among the ashes, it may be that the pain is chiefly that of new wings trying to push through.
May Sarton
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Love is our human miracle.
May Sarton
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Read between the lines.Then meet me in the silence if you can.
May Sarton
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I have written every poem, every novel, for the same purpose-to find out what I think, to know where I stand.
May Sarton
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Routine is not a prison, but the way into freedom from time.
May Sarton
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I suppose real old age begins when one looks backward rather than forward
May Sarton
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One could go on revising a prose page forever whereas there is a point in a poem when one knows it is done forever.
May Sarton
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What is destructive is impatience, haste, expecting too much too fast.
May Sarton
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It is always hard to hear the buried truth from another person.
May Sarton
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Human relations just are not fixed in their orbits like the planets -- they're more like galaxies, changing all the time, exploding into light for years, then dying away.
May Sarton
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Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything - except itself.
May Sarton
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Lunches are just not good. They take the heart out of the day and the spaciousness from the morning's work.
May Sarton
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Nobody stays special when they're old, Anna. That's what we have to learn.
May Sarton
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Poems like to have a destination for their flight. They are homing pigeons.
May Sarton
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It is curious how any making of order makes one feel mentally ordered, ordered inside.
May Sarton
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Go rich in poverty. Go rich in poetry. This nothingness is plentitude.
May Sarton
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It is sometimes the most fragile things that have the power to endure and become sources of strength.
May Sarton