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The purpose of poetry is to make life complete in itself.

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
Complete
Poetry
Purpose
Make
Life

More quotes by Wallace Stevens

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Beauty is momentary in the mind -- The fitful tracing of a portal But in the flesh it is immortal. The body dies the body's beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminably flowing.
Wallace Stevens
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It is the mind that is woven, the mind that was jerked And tufted in straggling thunder and shattered sun.
Wallace Stevens
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The wind, Tempestuous clarion, with heavy cry, Came bluntly thundering, more terrible Than the revenge of music on bassoons.
Wallace Stevens
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They said, 'You have a blue guitar, / You do not play things as they are.' / The man replied, 'Things as they are / Are changed upon the blue guitar.'
Wallace Stevens
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One must read poetry with one's nerves.
Wallace Stevens
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We say This changes and that changes. Thus the constant Violets, doves, girls, bees and hyacinths Are inconstant objects of inconstant cause In a universe of inconstancy.
Wallace Stevens
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I am the angel of Reality, Seen for a moment standing in the door.
Wallace Stevens
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The subject matter... is not that collection of solid, static objects extended in space but the life that is lived in the scene that it composes.
Wallace Stevens
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Disillusion is the last illusion.
Wallace Stevens
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Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in the falling snow Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights All pleasures and all pains, remembering The boughs of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul.
Wallace Stevens
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I do not know which to prefer - The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.
Wallace Stevens
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The sea Severs not only lands but also selves.
Wallace Stevens
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One's ignorance is one's chief asset.
Wallace Stevens
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After the final no there comes a yes And on that yes the future world depends.
Wallace Stevens
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The winter is made and you have to bear it, The winter web, the winter woven, wind and wind, For all the thoughts of summer that go with it In the mind, pupa of straw, moppet of rags.
Wallace Stevens
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Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Wallace Stevens
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The consolations of space are nameless things. It was after the neurosis of winter. It was In the genius of summer that they blew up The statue of Jove among the boomy clouds. It took all day to quieten the sky And then to refill its emptiness again.
Wallace Stevens
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Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking.
Wallace Stevens
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I am one of you and being one of you is being and knowing what I am and know. Yet I am the necessary Angel of earth, since, in my sight, you see the earth again.
Wallace Stevens
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The only emperor is the emperor of ice cream.
Wallace Stevens