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What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?

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
Positivity
Odds
Madness
Positive
Circumstances
Soul
Nobility
Circumstance

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

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I have gone into the waste lonely places
Theodore Roethke
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I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke
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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
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The living all assemble! What's the cue?-- Do what the clumsy partner wants to do!
Theodore Roethke
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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
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Reason? That dreary shed, that hutch for grubby schoolboys.
Theodore Roethke
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We think by feeling. What is there to know?
Theodore Roethke
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Time marks us while we are marking time.
Theodore Roethke
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I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road,As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swamplandDisturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance,By pulling off flesh from the living planetAs if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration.
Theodore Roethke
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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.
Theodore Roethke
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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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The stones were sharp, The wind came at my back Walking along the highway, Mincing like a cat.
Theodore Roethke
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Nothing would give up life: Even the dirt keeps breathing a small breath.
Theodore Roethke
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Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
Theodore Roethke
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Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
Theodore Roethke
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I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.
Theodore Roethke
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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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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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Being, not doing, is my first joy.
Theodore Roethke
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A mind too active is no mind at all.
Theodore Roethke