Quote

I only asked my friends to be friendly and polite, I found them indifferent and censorious The one I left to silence, the other to reproach: God send me over all such friends victorious.

Stevie Smith

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Stevie Smith
Age: 68 †
Born: 1902
Born: September 20
Died: 1971
Died: March 7
Illustrator
Novelist
Performing Artist
Poet
Writer
Hull
England
Florence Margaret Smith
Found
Indifferent
Friendly
Send
Friendship
Asked
Censorious
Silence
Victorious
Friends
Reproach
Left
Polite

More quotes by Stevie Smith

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Cry pretty, pretty, pretty and you'll be able Very soon not even to cry pretty And so be delivered entirely from humanity This is prettiest of all, it is very pretty.
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Why does my muse only speak when she is uhnhappy? She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy.
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The human creature is alone in his carapace. Poetry is a strong way out.
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This is the simplest of all thoughts, that Death must come when we call, although he is a god.
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Nothing is more wistful than the scent of lilac, nor more robust than its woody stalk, for we must remember that it is a tree as well as a flower, we must try not to forget this.
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Youth is an arithmetical statement of passing interest, each hour eats it up.
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Love is not love that wounded bleeds And bleeding sullies slow. Come death within my hands and I Unto my love will go.
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People who are always praising the past And especially the time of faith as best Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.
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Fourteen-year-old, why must you giggle and dote, Fourteen-year-old, why are you such a goat? I'm fourteen years old, that is the reason, I giggle and dote in season.
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I love people, but I love the thought and memory of them just as much.
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If a lady comes up to you and tells you that your dear mama is lying in a faint on the pavement round the corner, don't you believe her, don't have anything to do with her, do not go with her into the cab. It is the White Slave Traffic.
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My Muse sits forlorn She wishes she had not been born She sits in the cold No word she says is ever told.
Stevie Smith
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Into the dark night Resignedly I go, I am not so afraid of the dark night As the friends I do not know, I do not fear the night above As I fear the friends below.
Stevie Smith
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As Nature is always careless and indifferent Who sees, who steps, means nothing and this is pretty.
Stevie Smith
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Christianity in the suburb is cheerful. The church is a centre of social activity and those who go to church need never be lonely.
Stevie Smith
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I may be smelly and I may be old, Rough in my pebbles, reedy in my pools, But where my fish float by I bless their swimming, And I like the people to bathe in me especially women.
Stevie Smith
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Truth is far and flat, and fancy is fiery and truth is cold, and people feel the cold, and they may wrap themselves against it in fancies that are fiery, but they should not call them facts and, generally, poets do not they are shrewd, they feel the cold, too, but they know a hawk from a handsaw, a fact from a fancy, as none knows better.
Stevie Smith
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My heart was full of softening showers, I used to swing like this for hours, I did not care for war or death, I was glad to draw my breath.
Stevie Smith
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I'm sorry to say my dear wife is a dreamer, and as she dreams she gets paler and leaner. Then be off to your Dream, with his fly-away hat, I stay with the girls who are happy and fat.
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O happy dogs of England, Bark well at errand boys, If you lived anywhere else, You would not be allowed to make such an infernal noise.
Stevie Smith