Marianne Moore Quotes

Blessed the geniuses who know
that egomania is not a duty.

Durer would have seen a reason for living
in a town like this

"Truth is no Apollo
Belvedere, no formal thing. The wave may go over it if it likes.
Know that it will be there when it says,
"I shall be there when the wave has gone by.

Appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.

We are what we were at birth, and each trait has remained in conformity with earth's and with heaven's logic: Be the devil's tool, resort to black magic, None can diverge from the ends which Heaven foreordained.

Love, ah Love, when your slipknot's drawn, One can but say, "Farewell, good sense."

The problems is mastered — insupportably tiring when it was impending. Deliverance accounts for what sounds like axiom. <p> The Gordian knot need not be cut.

Staff and effigy of the animal which by shedding its skin is a sign of renewal — the symbol of medicine.

A symbol from the first, of mastery, experiments such as Hippocrates made and substituted for vague speculation stayed the ravages of plague.

What of it? We call them brave perhaps? Yes; what if the time should come when no one will fight for anything and there's nothing of worth to save.

We Call Them the Brave who likely were reluctant to be brave.

Some speak of things we know, as new; And you, of things unknown as things forgot.

Beauty is everlasting
and dust is for a time.

What is our innocence,
what is our guilt? All are
naked, none is safe.

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 it has let go. This then you may know
as the hero.