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What we have not has made us what we are. / ... / What we are not drives us to consummation.

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
Made
Consummation
Drives
Ambition
Desire

More quotes by May Sarton

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The only way through pain…is to absorb, probe, understand exactly what it is and what it means. To close the door on pain is to miss the chance for growth.
May Sarton
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... love is healing, even rootless love.
May Sarton
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A house that does not have one warm, comfy chair in it is soulless.
May Sarton
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I sometimes imagine that as one grows older one comes to live a role which as a young person one merely 'played.
May Sarton
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A holiday gives one a chance to look backward and forward to reset oneself by an inner compass.
May Sarton
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Mountains define you. You cannot define / Them.
May Sarton
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Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything - except itself.
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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O cruel cloudless space, And pale bare ground where the poor infant lies! Why do we feel restored As in a sacramental place? Here Mystery is artifice, And here a vision of such peace is stored, Healing flows from it through our eyes.
May Sarton
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Without anxiety life would have very little savor.
May Sarton
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For me the moral dilemma this past year has been how to make peace with the unacceptable.
May Sarton
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Absence becomes the greatest Presence.
May Sarton
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We are all, whether we know it or not, in search of a way to enrich, to drink during the fizz, to inhale deeper our gifts, in a desperation for some little understanding before death.
May Sarton
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We cannot afford not to fight for growth and understanding, even when it is painful, as it is bound to be.
May Sarton
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For of course one is never safe when in love. Growth is demanding and may seem dangerous, for there is loss as well as gain in growth. But why go on living if one has ceased to grow? And what more demanding atmosphere for growth than love in any form, than any relationship which can call out and requires of us our most secret and deepest selves?
May Sarton
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Though friendship is not quick to burn it is explosive stuff.
May Sarton
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One thing is certain, and I have always known it - the joys of my life have nothing to do with age. They do not change. Flowers, the morning and evening light, music, poetry, silence, the goldfinches darting about
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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[In old age] there is a childlike innocence, often, that has nothing to do with the childishness of senility. The moments become precious . . .
May Sarton
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If art is not to be life-enhancing, what is it to be? Half the world is feminine - why is there resentment at a female-oriented art? Nobody asks The Tale of Genji to be masculine! Women certainly learn a lot from books oriented toward a masculine world. Why is not the reverse also true? Or are men really so afraid of women's creativity?
May Sarton