Great Throughts Treasury

"The poet is an untier of knots, and love wqithout words is a knot, and it drowns."

"And we go on and on, Neither sleeping nor awake, Towards the meeting, unaware That we are already there. That the silence is perfect, And that the flesh is gone. The call still is not heard Nor does the Caller reveal his face. But perhaps this might be Oh, my love, the gift Of the eternal Face without gestures And of the kingdom without form! "

"The night, it is deserted from the mountains to the sea. But I, the one who rocks you, I am not alone! The sky, it is deserted for the moon falls to the sea. But I, the one who holds you, I am not alone ! The world, it is deserted. All flesh is sad you see. But I, the one who hugs you, I am not alone! "

"She speaks in her way of her savage seas With unknown algae and unknown sands; She prays to a formless, weightless God, Aged, as if dying. In our garden now so strange, She has planted cactus and alien grass. The desert zephyr fills her with its breath And she has loved with a fierce, white passion She never speaks of, for if she were to tell It would be like the face of unknown stars. Among us she may live for eighty years, Yet always as if newly come, Speaking a tongue that plants and whines Only by tiny creatures understood. And she will die here in our midst One night of utmost suffering, With only her fate as a pillow, And death, silent and strange. "

"From the icy niche where men placed you I lower your body to the sunny, poor earth. They didn't know I too must sleep in it and dream on the same pillow. I place you in the sunny ground, with a mother's sweet care for her napping child, and the earth will be a soft cradle when it receives your hurt childlike body. I scatter bits of earth and rose dust, and in the moon's airy and blue powder what is left of you is a prisoner. I leave singing my lovely revenge. No hand will reach into the obscure depth to argue with me over your handful of bones. "

"I feel my heart melting in the mildness like candles: my veins are slow oil and not wine, and I feel my life fleeing hushed and gentle like the gazelle. "

"Let us go now into the forest. Trees will pass by your face, and I will stop and offer you to them, but they cannot bend down. The night watches over its creatures, except for the pine trees that never change: the old wounded springs that spring blessed gum, eternal afternoons. If they could, the trees would lift you and carry you from valley to valley, and you would pass from arm to arm, a child running from father to father. "

"In vain you try To smother my song: A million children In chorus sing it Beneath the sun! In vain you try To break my verse Of affliction: The children sing it Under God! "

"Decalogue Of The Artist: I. You shall love beauty, which is the shadow of God over the Universe. II.There is no godless art. Although you love not the Creator, you shall bear witness to Him creating His likeness. III.You shall create beauty not to excite the senses but to give sustenance to the soul. IV. You shall never use beauty as a pretext for luxury and vanity but as a spiritual devotion. V. You shall not seek beauty at carnival or fair or offer your work there, for beauty is virginal and is not to be found at carnival or fair. VI. Beauty shall rise from your heart in song, and you shall be the first to be purified. VII.The beauty you create shall be known as compassion and shall console the hearts of men. VIII.You shall bring forth your work as a mother brings forth her child: out of the blood of your heart. IX. Beauty shall not be an opiate that puts you to sleep but a strong wine that fires you to action, for if you fail to be a true man or a true woman, you will fail to be an artist. X. Each act of creation shall leave you humble, for it is never as great as your dream and always inferior to that most marvelous dream of God which is Nature. "

"I believe in my heart that when The wounded heart sunk within the depth of God sings It rises from the pond alive As if new-born. I believe in my heart that what I wring from myself To tinge life’s canvas With red of pallid hue, thus cloaking it In luminous garb. "

"The treasure at the heart of the rose is your own heart's treasure. Scatter it as the rose does: your pain becomes hers to measure. Scatter it in a song, or in one great love's desire. Do not resist the rose lest you burn in its fire. "

"A crippled child said, ‘How shall I dance?’ Let your heart dance we said. Then the invalid said: How shall I sing? Let your heart sing we said. Then spoke the poor dead thistle, ‘But how shall I dance?’ Let your heart fly to the wind we said. Then God spoke from above, ‘How shall I descend from the blue?’ Come dance for us here in the light we said. ‘All the valley is dancing together under the sun, and the heart of him who joins us not is turned to dust, to dust.’"

"As a daughter of Chilean democracy, I am moved to have before me a representative of the Swedish democratic tradition, a tradition whose originality consists in perpetually renewing itself within the framework of the most valuable creations of society."

"Bible, my noble Bible, magnificent panorama, where my eyes lingered for a long time, you have in the Psalms the most burning of lavas and in its river of fire I lit my heart! You sustained my people with your strong wine and you made them stand strong among men, and just saying your name gives me strength; because I come from you I have broken destiny After you, only the scream of the great Florentine went through my bones."

"At this moment, by an undeserved stroke of fortune, I am the direct voice of the poets of my race and the indirect voice for the noble Spanish and Portuguese tongues."

"I have a faithful joy and a joy that is lost. One is like a rose, the other, a thorn. The one that was stolen I have not lost."

"In the secret of night, my prayer climbs like the liana, My prayer is, and I am not. It grows, and I perish. I have only my hard breath, my reason and my madness. I cling to the vine of my prayer. I tend it at the root of the stalk of night."

"I have all that I lost and I go carrying my childhood like a favorite flower that perfumes my hand."

"It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams."

"Education is perhaps the highest form of seeking God."

"I remember the legion of professors and teachers who show the foreigner unquestionably exemplary schools, and I look with trusting love to those other members of the Swedish people: farmers, craftsmen, and workers."

"Let us go now into the forest. Trees will pass by your face, and I will stop and offer you to them, but they cannot bend down. The night watches over its creatures, except for the pine trees that never change: the old wounded springs that spring blessed gum, eternal afternoons. If they could, the trees would lift you and carry you from valley to valley, and you would pass from arm to arm, a child running from father to father."

"Love beauty it is the shadow of God on the universe."

"It would have pleased the cosmopolitan spirit of Alfred Nobel to extend the scope of his protectorate of civilization by including within its radius the southern hemisphere of the American continent."

"May God preserve this exemplary nation, its heritage and its creations, its efforts to conserve the imponderables of the past and to cross the present with the confidence of maritime people who overcome every challenge."

"My homeland, represented here today by our learned Minister Gajardo, respects and loves Sweden, and it has sent me here to accept the special honor you have awarded to it."

"Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are formed, his mind developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is today."

"Love that stammers, that stutters, is apt to be the love that loves best."

"Speech is our second possession, after the soul-and perhaps we have no other possession in this world."

"What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it."

"Where there is a tree to plant, you plant it. Where there is an error that amend, you make amends. Where there is an effort that all dodge, do it. You be the stone that way away."

"We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer ‘Tomorrow,’ his name is today."

"You shall create beauty not to excite the senses but to give sustenance to the soul."

"The daughter of a new people, I salute the spiritual pioneers of Sweden, by whom I have been helped more than once."