Quote

One type of concentration is immediate and complete, as it was with Mozart. The other is plodding and only completed in stages, as with Beethoven. Thus genius works in different ways to achieve its ends.

Stephen Spender

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Stephen Spender
Age: 86 †
Born: 1909
Born: February 28
Died: 1995
Died: July 16
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Poet
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
London
England
Stephen Harold Spender
Way
Works
Mozart
Genius
Beethoven
Type
Completed
Achieve
Stages
Stage
Immediate
Ways
Concentration
Ends
Complete
Different
Thus
Plodding

More quotes by Stephen Spender

Image
I think continually of those who were truly great . Who, from the womb, remembered the soul 's history Through corridors of light where the hours are suns , Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire , Should tell of the spirit clothed from head to foot in song .
Stephen Spender
Image
The greatest of all human delusions is that there is a tangible goal, and not just direction towards an ideal aim. The idea that a goal can be attained perpetually frustrates human beings, who are disappointed at never getting there, never being able to stop.
Stephen Spender
Image
If Rilke cut himself shaving, he would bleed poetry.
Stephen Spender
Image
I think continually of those who were truly great.
Stephen Spender
Image
When you read and understand a poem, comprehending its rich and formal meanings, then you master chaos a little.
Stephen Spender
Image
I think of those who were truly great. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Stephen Spender
Image
If you get to a certain age, all people want to know about you is people you knew. ...An American student once said to me, you know, isn't it extraordinary that I am alive and you're not dead.
Stephen Spender
Image
No one Shall hunger: Man shall spend equally. Our goal which we compel: Man shall be man.
Stephen Spender
Image
What we call the freedom of the individual is not just the luxury of one intellectual to write what he likes to write but his being a voice which can speak for those who are silent.
Stephen Spender
Image
Religion stands, the Church blocking the sun.
Stephen Spender
Image
For I had expected always Some brightness to hold in trust, Some final innocence To save from dust
Stephen Spender
Image
Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.
Stephen Spender
Image
Bright clasp of her whole hand around my finger My daughter as we walk together now. All my life I'll feel a ring invisibly Circle this bone with shining When she is grown.
Stephen Spender
Image
What the eye delights in, no longer dictates My greed to enjoy: boys, grass, the fenced-off deer. It leaves those figures that distantly play On the horizon's rim: they sign their peace, in games.
Stephen Spender
Image
I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.
Stephen Spender
Image
In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic, They beg, their eyes made big by empty staring And only measuring Time , like the blank clock. No, I shall weave no tracery of pen-ornament To make them birds upon my singing tree: Time merely drives these lives which do not live As tides push rotten stuff along the shore.
Stephen Spender
Image
I think continually of those who were truly great...Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, and left the vivid air signed with their honor.
Stephen Spender
Image
Paint here no draped despairs, no saddening clouds, Where the soul rests, proclaims eternity. But let the wrong cry out as raw as wounds, This Time forgets and never heals, far less transcends.
Stephen Spender
Image
My words like eyes that flinch from light, refuse And shut upon obscurity my acts Cast to their opposites by impatient violence Break up the sequent path they fly On a circumference to avoid the centre.
Stephen Spender
Image
Poetry cannot take sides except with life.
Stephen Spender