All art, in spite of the struggles of some critics to prove otherwise, is based on emotion and projects emotion. Louise Bogan More Quotes by Louise Bogan More Quotes From Louise Bogan The Initial Mystery that attends any journey is: how did the traveler reach his starting point in the first place? Louise Bogan mysteryjourneyfirsts I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy! Louise Bogan encouragementbeautyhappiness ... politics are nothing but sand and gravel: it is art and life that feed us until we die. Everything else is ambition, hysteria or hatred. Louise Bogan hysteriaambitionart Stupidity always accompanies evil. Or evil, stupidity. Louise Bogan stupiditystupidevil Perhaps this very instant is your time. Louise Bogan instant ...in a time lacking in truth and certainty and filled with anguish and despair, no woman should be shamefaced in attempting to give back to the world, through her work, a portion of its lost heart. Louise Bogan despairheartgiving But it's silly to suggest the writing of poetry is something ethereal, a sort of soul-crashing, devastating emotional experience that wrings you. I have no fancy ideas about poetry. ... It doesn't come to you on the wings of a dove. It's something you have to work hard at. Louise Bogan hard-worksillywriting I have lost faith in universal panaceas - work is the one thing in which I really believe. Louise Bogan worklostbelieve A thousand kindnesses do not make up for a thousand blows. Louise Bogan abuseblowkindness The poem is always the last resort. In it the poet makes a world in little, and finds peace, even though, under complete focused emotion, the evocation be far more bitter than reality, or far more lovely. Louise Bogan lovelypoetryreality Your work is carved out of agony as a statue is carved out of marble. Louise Bogan statuesmarbleagony Innocence of heart and violence of feeling are necessary in any kind of superior achievement: The arts cannot exist without them. Louise Bogan achievementfeelingsart I'll lie here and learn How, over their ground, Trees make a long shadow And a light sound. Louise Bogan lightlonglying Poetry is often generations in advance of the thought of its time. Louise Bogan generationspoetry-ispoetry Intellectuals range through the finest gradations of kind and quality: from those who are merely educated neurotics, usually with strong hidden reactionary tendencies, through mediocrities of all kinds, to men of real brains and sensibility, more or less stiffened into various respectabilities or substitutes for respectability. The number of Ignorant Specialists is large. The number of hysterics and compulsives is also large. Louise Bogan strongrealmen Up from the bronze, I saw Water without a flaw Rush to its rest in air Reach to its rest, and fall. Louise Bogan airwaterfall It is through the acceptance of a variety of aethetic and intellectual points of view that a culture is given breadth and density. Louise Bogan diversityacceptanceviews What we suffer, what we endure, what we muff, what we kill, what we miss, what we are guilty of, is done by us, as individuals, in private. Louise Bogan donesufferingmissing It is not possible, for a poet, writing in any language, to protect himself from the tragic elements in human life.... [ellipsis in source] Illness, old age, and death--subjects as ancient as humanity--these are the subjects that the poet must speak of very nearly from the first moment that he begins to speak. Louise Bogan poetrywritinglife No more pronouncements on lousy verse. No more hidden competition. No more struggling not to be a square. Louise Bogan competitionsquaresstruggle
