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All night I lay awake beside you,
Leaning on my elbow, watching your
Sleeping face, that face whose purity
Never ceases to astonish me.

— Kenneth Rexroth In Defense of the Earth (1956)

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Nature

More quotes by Kenneth Rexroth

Any talented decadent can make unreality believable. To make reality convincing is another matter, a matter for only the greatest masters.

Classics Revisited (1968)

There have always been those who, though they see tragedy as the outcome of freedom, will nevertheless judge that tragedy is not too high a price to pay.

Classics Revisited (1968)

The holiness of the real
Is always there, accessible
In total immanence. The nodes
Of transcendence coagulate
In you, the experiencer,
And in the other, the lover.

In Defense of the Earth (1956)

Men who live like Casanova are seldom interested in themselves; their egocentricity does not give them time for egotism.

Classics Revisited (1968)

What happened instead of apocalypse and judgment was a long-drawn-out apocalypse of counterrevolution against the promise and potential of a humane civilization.

An Autobiographical Novel (1991)

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Utu, shepherd of the land, father of the black-headed, when you go to sleep, the people go to sleep with you; youth Utu, when you rise, the people rise with you.

Lugalbanda

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)

Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal, which proceeded from something contrary to nature. Then there arises a disturbance in its whole body.

Jesus

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Attribution

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