Quote

All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.

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
Vision
Live
Summon
Declare
Longing
Endure
Lovers
Pure

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

Image
Death was not. I lived in a simple drowse:Hands and hair moved through a dream of wakening blossoms.Rain sweetened the cave and the dove still calledThe flowers leaned on themselves, the flowers in hollowsAnd love, love sang toward.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Being, not doing, is my first joy.
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 have gone into the waste lonely places
Theodore Roethke
Image
And soon a branch, part of a hidden scene,The leafy mind, that long was tightly furled,Will turn its private substance into green,And young shoots spread upon our inner world.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall: The word outleaps the world, and light is all.
Theodore Roethke
Image
What falls away is always. And is near.
Theodore Roethke
Image
A mind too active is no mind at all.
Theodore Roethke
Image
And I walked, I walked through the light air I moved with the morning.
Theodore Roethke
Image
The self says, I am The heart says, I am less The spirit says, you are Nothing.
Theodore Roethke
Image
The visible exhausts me. I am dissolved in shadow.
Theodore Roethke
Image
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.
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
Image
So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, An intolerable waiting, A longing for another place and time, Another condition.
Theodore Roethke
Image
How terrible the need for God.
Theodore Roethke
Image
I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
Theodore Roethke
Image
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
Theodore Roethke
Image
A too explicit elucidation in education destroys much of the pleasure of learning. There should be room for sly hinters, masters of suggestion.
Theodore Roethke
Image
Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
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