Quote

I measure myself Against a tall tree I find that I am much taller, For I reach right up to the sun With my eye And I reach to the shore of the sea With my ear. Nevertheless, I dislike The way the ants crawl In and out of my shadow.

Wallace Stevens

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Wallace Stevens
Age: 75 †
Born: 1879
Born: October 2
Died: 1955
Died: August 2
Journalist
Lawyer
Playwright
Poet
Poet Lawyer
Writer
Eye
Tall
Find
Measure
Right
Ears
Taller
Much
Sea
Crawl
Way
Shadow
Ants
Sun
Nevertheless
Reach
Dislike
Tree
Shore

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It is the belief and not the god that counts.
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The imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to what is real. When it adheres to the unreal and intensifies what is unreal, while its first effect may be extraordinary, that effect is the maximum effect that it will ever have.
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Civilization must be destroyed. The hairy saints of the North have earned this crumb by their complaints.
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I have said no To everything, in order to get at myself. I have wiped away moonlight like mud.
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The wind, Tempestuous clarion, with heavy cry, Came bluntly thundering, more terrible Than the revenge of music on bassoons.
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All of our ideas come from the natural world: trees equal umbrellas.
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Life is not free from its forms.
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How full of trifles everything is! It is only one's thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture.
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The belief in poetry is a magnificent fury, or it is nothing.
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