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By daily dying, I have come to be.

Theodore Roethke

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Theodore Roethke
Age: 55 †
Born: 1908
Born: May 25
Died: 1963
Died: August 1
Poet
Teacher
Writer
Saginaw
Michigan
Dying
Philosophy
Come
Philosophical
Daily

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, An intolerable waiting, A longing for another place and time, Another condition.
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I came where the river Ran over stones My ears knew An early joy. And all the waters Of all the streams Sang in my veins That summer day.
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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
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Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
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I lose and find myself in the long water. I am gathered together once more.
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What have I done, dear God, to deserve this perpetual feeling that I'm almost ready to begin something really new?
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I have gone into the waste lonely places
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You must believe: a poem is a holy thing - a good poem, that is. The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods.
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The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.
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We think by feeling. What is there to know?
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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.
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
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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.
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Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
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Let others probe the mystery if they can.Time-harried prisoners of Shall and Will -The right thing happens to the happy man.
Theodore Roethke
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What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke