Poetic Quotes

At UTEP, one of the things which I became extremely interested in were quotes.  But not just any quotes.  Anyone can say anything, but few people ever say anything which has such a profound effect on the psyche that it is even worth noting.  It is these types of quotes which hold for us "the very meaning of our lives." --- The Matrix.  These are the ones with philosophical implications.  These are the ones we hold dear.  These are the ones which give insight into our buried souls by defining our everyday actions.  To this extent, I have dedicated this corner of my cyberspace to accumulating those quotes which, like poetry, hold a deeper, more significant meaning for yours truly.

A note on explanations: I have found that over the years, it is not enough to just spew out a quote, for its significance can be lost on the recipient if they have no clue what is being referred to. A quote is of little use to a reader without the context which gave that quote its life, without a reason as to why it is significant. To this extent, I have attached my two cents to every quote, annoying though they may be.

A note on the order: I have placed these quotes in no particular order, more at random. But for the most part, they are listed in the order by which they came upon me. As such, the order is (mostly) defined by the chronology of my life, such that the quotes found their significance both as I found them and as they found me. And even then, I have placed them as I found suitable... as the spirit grabbed me...

    The very first quote that I ever put in my little green book (that's where I write down those quotes which I find especially fulfilling - black book is in the other pocket) was from an interview of F. Murray Abraham.  I was reading the newspaper (which was strange for me back in my early college days), when I came across the article.  It caught my attention because, mildly surprised, I discovered that he grew up in El Paso, which, if you were keeping up, is where I grew up and was living at the time.  Intrigued, I read the whole story and was immediately impressed.  Why?  Not b/c of Abraham's modesty.  Rather, b/c the rewards he sought were not those bestowed upon him.  True fulfillment comes from the heart, not to it.

"You know why I don't keep that around?," Abraham asked pointing to the Academy Award and Golden Globe statues on his mother's mantle.  "Because you begin to believe that stuff."

--- as taken from an El Paso Times interview (Nov. 1, 1995) of F. Murray Abraham

More importantly, there is nothing worse than lying to yourself.

"When hypocrisy is a character trait, it also affects one's thinking, because it consists in the negation of all the aspects of reality that one finds disagreeable, irrational, or repugnant."

--- Octavio Paz

Hypocrisy is a way of running away from oneself.  I say, just accept yourself for who you are and learn to deal with it.

"To thine own self be true."

--- Shakespeare, Hamlet

Of course, most of the lines I tend to enjoy come from the books I read. Here's one from a book I've never even seen.

"He who studieth revenge keeps his own wounds green."

--- Francis Bacon, Of Revenge

One thing I've noticed about Hume... for one of the worlds greatest skeptics, I think he had a better understanding of God then some of the greatest believers.

"The world, therefore, I infer, is an animal, and the Deity is the Soul of the world, actuating it, and actuated by it."

--- Hume, Design and the Teleological Argument

The problem with philosophy, though, is not the knowing.  It's the remembering.  All the knowledge in the world is useless if it can't be recalled, all the philosophy useless if you can't use it when you need it, and all the history useless if you can't learn from it.  What do you believe in?  What do you really believe in?  Always remember, and always hold it close to your heart.

"Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his belief with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away."

--- William K. Clifford, The Ethics of Belief

In a world ruled by wolves, how does a good lamb survive?

"Man is a wolf to man."

--- Plautus

"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good."

--- Machiavelli, Of the Things for Which Men, and especially Princes are Praised of Blamed

How can order be accomplished among the chaos that is the world as we know it?

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

--- A. Crowley

"It is a world of all against all."

--- Hobbes

What happens when that world was of our own creation?  The way of the leaf...

"To climb against him was your fall."

--- Augustine, Confessions 1V, 12

Fortunately, there are those patriots among us who have learned how to fight for what they believe in.

"Breathes there a man with a soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, this is my own, my native land?"

--- Sir Walter Raleigh Scott

"If the innocent man must quietly quit all he has, for peace sake... what a kind of peace there will be in the world."

--- Locke, XIX, 228

"A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them."

--- Carl Gustan Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections

There are those who know what they believe in.

"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine."

--- Frederick Douglas, What to the slaves is the 4th of July?: An Address Delivered in Rochester, NY, 7-5-1852

There are those who know when to fight.

"But a man could not ruin himself in a more decent cause."

--- Voltaire of Ferney

And when the fighting is over, the poet waxes philosophical.

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty.  These are all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

--- John Keats

And though someone may have won, it sucks being at the top.

"He who surpasses or subdues mankind must look down on the hate of those below."

--- Lord Byron

And yet, so many want to be top banana.  It just doesn't make any sense to me.

"Power is the grim idol that the world adores."

--- William Hazlitt

But I guess everyone has to strive for something.  Without something to strive for, where would we find the fire within to overcome the odds?  Though I've never read Hegel, I've read enough Marx to discover that men don't create boundaries so much as boundaries create them.  Sometimes wisdom comes from the strangest places.

"Boundaries are set by dictators.  Created to regulate cattle grazing and employ tollbooth attendants.  With no regard for mankinds unalienable rights; among those, to treat the world as it was intended.  As a place of curiosity and chance.  To be walked, scaled, rafted, and by all means trodden.  Not that limits have no place here.  They do.  But they were never meant as barriers that keep you in.  Only starting points that suggest how much further you could go out."

--- from an inspirational Nike poster, Boundaries

"Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion."

--- Hegel, Philosophy of History

Even comic books can hold self-evident truths.  You'd be surprised where some great writers end up.

"It is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions... born from account, nurtured in the heart, and brought forth as legend."

--- Lee Falk, The Phantom

Books aren't the only source of divine inspiration.  Plays can hold surprising wisdom.  Perhaps that's why Shakespeare is so popular.  Some things are timeless.

"But you, O you, so perfect and so peerless, are created of every creatures best!"

--- as spoken by Miranda in The Tempest (3.1 46-48)

And later in the same play, yet another pearl of wisdom.

"The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance."

--- (5.1 27-28)

Still, the best line is one which well expresses what most people use far too lightly (as well as much of the bull which I'm spouting even now).

"Words, words, words."

--- Hamlet

Here's one thing from Shakey which I just like.  It's just cool in the way it expresses sunset.

"Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, while nights black agents to their prey do rouse."

--- Can't remember which play this was from.

Shakespeare isn't the only wise playwright.  Why do people fear death so much?  Especially when there are worse things than death out there.

"Death is not the worst evil, but rather, when we wish to die and cannot."

--- Sophocles

Some of the most insightful lines that I come across do not come from books.  Instead, they come from the thing in which I find the most comfort.  There's nothing like a pair of headphones while alone in a dark room.  Music is my drug.

"The fate of nations lies trapped within these hearts of greed."

--- Robert Plant, Great Spirit

And from one of my favorite bands, who ofttimes remains true to their name,

"And all the words that I've been reading have now started the act of bleeding into one."

--- Collective Soul, The World I Know

Yeah verily, if music can hold the key to wisdom, why not television?  One of my favorite lines came from the TV show Nash Bridges of all things.  In an episode where a guy fools himself into thinking he's an angel, he says one of the most simple profound statements I've ever heard.

"Faith exists independent of proof."

--- an angel, Nash Bridges

In the end, it all comes together.  Everything is connected.  What goes around comes around.  Birds of a feather flock together.  Bla, bla, bla, and yadda, yadda, yadda.  TTFN.

This page was last updated on July 23, 2014