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The self says, I am The heart says, I am less The spirit says, you are Nothing.

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
Humility
Says
Less
Spirit
Nothing
Self
Heart

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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How terrible the need for God.
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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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Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall: The word outleaps the world, and light is all.
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Live in a perpetual great astonishment.
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What's important? That which is dug out of books, or out of the guts?
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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.
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Art is our defense against hysteria and death.
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I came to love, I came into my own.
Theodore Roethke
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By daily dying, I have come to be.
Theodore Roethke
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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.
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The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
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Time marks us while we are marking time.
Theodore Roethke
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And I walked, I walked through the light air I moved with the morning.
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In the kingdom of bang and blab.
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The living all assemble! What's the cue?-- Do what the clumsy partner wants to do!
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A mind too active is no mind at all.
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How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
Theodore Roethke
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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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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
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Long live the weeds that overwhelm My narrow vegetable realm! The bitter rock, the barren soil That force the son of man to toil All things unholy, marred by curse, The ugly of the universe.
Theodore Roethke