Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of the whole river of electricity.
Old Madame du Deffand and her friends talked for fifty years without stopping. And of it all, what remains? Perhaps three witty sayings. So that we are at liberty to suppose either that nothing was said, or that nothing witty was said, or that the fraction of three witty sayings lasted eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty nights, which does not leave a liberal allowance of wit for any one of them.
Your countenance perfectly informs me that you were in company last night with the person, whom you think the most agreeable in the world, the person who interests you at this present time, more than all the rest of the world put together.
Make me a willow cabin at your gate, And call upon my soul within the house; Write loyal cantons of contemned love And sing them loud even in the dead of night.
One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night.
Each one of us pray, day and night, for the downtrodden millions in India, who are held fast by poverty, priest craft, and tyranny - pray day and night for them. I am no meta physician, no philosopher, nay, no saint. But I am poor, I love the poor.... Let these people be your God - think of them, work for them, pray for them incessantly - the Lord will show you the way.
It was a marvelous night, the sort of night one only experiences when one is young. The sky was so bright, and there were so many stars that, gazing upward, one couldn't help wondering how so many whimsical, wicked people could live under such a sky.
There are times where I'd say the Oval Office, you use to gather the facts. The decisions you probably make late at night, or at least I do. But there are some times where you think you've made a decision, but during that walk, where you're announcing the decision, you've just got to make sure that, you're prepared to live with it, because as you know George, a lot of these decisions are not - the outcomes are uncertain.
Winter came and the city [Chicago] turned monochrome -- black trees against gray sky above white earth. Night now fell in midafternoon, especially when the snowstorms rolled in, boundless prairie storms that set the sky close to the ground, the city lights reflected against the clouds
O comfort-killing night, image of hell, Dim register and notary of shame, Black stage for tragedies and murders fell, Vast sin-concealing chaos, nurse of blame!