Quote #8

This is a strange fraternity - these sea lions and land lions, land unicorns and sea unicorns; the lion civilly rampant, tame and concessive like the long-tailed bear of Ecuador - the lion standing up against this screen of woven air which is the forest: the unicorn also, on its hind legs in reciprocity.

More from Marianne Moore

  1. The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint.
  2. So wary as to disappear for centuries and reappear but never caught, the unicorn has been preserved by an unmatched device wrought like the…
  3. I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one di…
  4. He's not out seeing a sight but the rock crystal thing to see - the startling El Greco brimming with inner light - that covets nothing that…
  5. that which is impossible to force, it is impossible to hinder.
  6. What is our innocence, what is our guilt? All are naked, none is safe.
  7. You are not male nor female, but a plan deep-set within the heart of man.
  8. Beauty is everlasting and dust is for a time.

All Marianne Moore quotes