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My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.
An epic of the eyes
My love, with no disguise.

— Theodore Roethke Open House (1941)

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Love

More quotes by Theodore Roethke

God bless the roots! — Body and soul are one!
The small become the great, the great the small;
The right thing happens to the happy man.

The Far Field (1964)

Voice, come out of the silence.
Say something.

The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

And soon a branch, part of a hidden scene,
The leafy mind, that long was tightly furled,
Will turn its private substance into green,
And young shoots spread upon our inner world.

Open House (1941)

To know that light falls and fills, often without our knowing.

The Lost Son and Other Poems (1948)

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.

Poetry and Craft (1965)

All Theodore Roethke quotes →

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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell Marriage and Morals (1929)

Not for the body, but for the heart; companion and company are needed.

Sanu Sharma

Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies,
And Venus sets ere Mercury can rise.

Alexander Pope

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Theodore Roethke (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.