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Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.

— Theodore Roethke

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Topics

Nature

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