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What chieftain, walking by himself, crying
Most miserable, most victorious,
Does not see these separate figures one by one,
And yet see only one, in his old coat,
His slouching pantaloons, beyond the town,
Looking for what was, where it used to be?

— Wallace Stevens Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942)

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More quotes by Wallace Stevens

Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.

Beauty is momentary in the mind —
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.
The body dies; the body's beauty lives.

Harmonium (1923)

One ought not to hoard culture. It should be adapted and infused into society as a leaven. Liberality of culture does not mean illiberality of its benefits.

To be young is all there is in the world.

A few things for themselves,
Florida, venereal soil,
Disclose to the lover.

Harmonium (1923)

All Wallace Stevens quotes →

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