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The operation of the imagination in life is more significant than its operation in or in relation to works of art... in life what is important is the truth as it is, while in arts and letters what is important is truth as we see it.

— Wallace Stevens The Necessary Angel (1951)

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Imagination

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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Some of my youthful readers are developing wonderful imaginations. This pleases me.

L. Frank Baum Introduction to The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)

There is an inverse relationship between imagination and money.

Alan Moore

An active imagination may find a bad tendency arising out of every transaction between imperfect morals.

Edward Hall Alderson Brownlow v. Egerton (1854)

Nothing is more dangerous to reason than the flights of the imagination, and nothing has been the occasion of more mistakes among philosophers.

David Hume A Treatise of Human Nature (1739)

Attribution

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.