Quote #95

So poisonous Are the ravishments of truth, so fatal to The truth itself, the first idea becomes The hermit in a poet's metaphors, Who comes and goes and comes and goes all day.

More from Wallace Stevens

  1. Phoebus is dead, ephebe. But Phoebus was A name for something that never could be named. There was a project for the sun and is. There is a…
  2. The monastic man is an artist.The philosopher Appoints man's place in music, say, today. But the priest desires. The philosopher desires. A…
  3. The death of one god is the death of all.
  4. The poem refreshes life so that we share, For a moment, the first idea . . . It satisfies Belief in an immaculate beginning And sends us, w…
  5. Begin, ephebe, by perceiving the idea Of this invention, this invented world, The inconceivable idea of the sun. You must become an ignoran…
  6. The poem, through candor, brings back a power again That gives a candid kind to everything.
  7. Here is the bread of time to come, Here is its actual stone. The bread Will be our bread, the stone will be Our bed and we shall sleep by n…
  8. Life's nonsense pierces us with strange relation.

All Wallace Stevens quotes