Quote

A mind too active is no mind at all.

Theodore Roethke

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Theodore Roethke
Age: 55 †
Born: 1908
Born: May 25
Died: 1963
Died: August 1
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Saginaw
Michigan
Intelligence
Mind
Intuition
Active

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

Image
The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
Theodore Roethke
Image
I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
Theodore Roethke
Image
A terrible violence of creation,A flash into the burning heart of the abominableYet if we wait, unafraid, beyond the fearful instant,The burning lake turns into a forest pool,The fire subsides into rings of water,A sunlit silence.
Theodore Roethke
Image
In a dark time, the eye begins to see / I meet my shadow in the deepening shade...Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
Theodore Roethke
Image
I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall: The word outleaps the world, and light is all.
Theodore Roethke
Image
In this place of light: he dares to live Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.
Theodore Roethke
Image
What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
Theodore Roethke
Image
What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
Theodore Roethke
Image
How terrible the need for God.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
Theodore Roethke
Image
What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?
Theodore Roethke
Image
What have I done, dear God, to deserve this perpetual feeling that I'm almost ready to begin something really new?
Theodore Roethke
Image
The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
Theodore Roethke
Image
But when I breath with the birds, The spirit of wrath becomes the spirit of blessings, And the dead begin from their dark to sing in my sleep.
Theodore Roethke
Image
The indignity of it!- With everything blooming above me, Lilies, pale-pink cyclamen, roses, Whole fields lovely and inviolate,- Me down in the fetor of weeds, Crawling on all fours, Alive, in a slippery grave.
Theodore Roethke
Image
I am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.
Theodore Roethke
Image
By daily dying, I have come to be.
Theodore Roethke
Image
The fields stretch out in long unbroken rows. We walk aware of what is far and close. Here distance is familiar as a friend. The feud we kept with space comes to an end.
Theodore Roethke