A Quote by Archibald MacLeish

Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.

Archibald MacLeish

Quote Topics

Poetry Wisdom About Cares Conventional Conventional Wisdom Either Football Life Man Meet No Reason Notwithstanding Reason Should Two Weight Why Words

Quote Author

Archibald MacLeish
American - Poet
May 7, 1892 - April 20, 1982

Man is a masterpiece of creation if for no other reason than that, all the weight of evidence for determinism notwithstanding, he believes he has free will.

Georg C. Lichtenberg

You know, there are good reasons to learn how to read. Poetry isn't one of them. I mean, so what if two roads go two ways in a wood? So what? Who cares if it made all that big a difference? What difference? And why should I have to guess what the difference is? Isn't that what he's supposed to say? Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?

Gary D. Schmidt

I should think that many of our poets, the honest ones, will confess to having no manifesto. It is a painful confession but the art of poetry carries its own powers without having to break them down into critical listings. I do not mean that poetry should be raffish and irresponsible clown tossing off words into the void. But the very feeling of a good poem carries its own reason for being... Art is its own excuse, and it’s either Art or it’s something else. It’s either a poem or a piece of cheese.

Charles Bukowski

The problem in our society is the ego psychology and conventional wisdom about "look out for #1." That conventional wisdom thinks that "love your enemy" is to some a principle no one can ever live by.

Robert Thurman

Conventional wisdom is no wisdom at all. Conventional wisdom is taking somebody else's word for the way things are It's the followers of this world who rely on assumption. Not the leaders.

Richard Marcinko

Notwithstanding the trouble, notwithstanding the argument, notwithstanding the increasingly heavy hand of government, notwithstanding the spirit of arrogance we so often display, notwithstanding the growing tide of pornography and permissiveness, notwithstanding occasional corruption in public office and betrayal of sacred trust-I marvel at the miracle of America.

Gordon B. Hinckley

If you are the kind of person who listens to conservative advice, you may do okay in life, but you probably won't ever be a fantastic leader. You have to take risks, and you also have to go against conventional wisdom, because conventional wisdom doesn't make for startling advances in society.

Ruth Simmons

Conventional wisdom is invariably out of date. Because in the time it has taken to become conventional - to become what everyone believes - the world has moved on. Conventional wisdom is a remnant of the past.

Michael Crichton

There is no doubt that the loftiest written wisdom is either rhymed or in some way musically measured,--is, in form as well as substance, poetry; and a volume which should contain the condensed wisdom of mankind need not have one rhythmless line.

Henry David Thoreau

As the rays of the sun, notwithstanding their velocity, injure not the eye, by reason of their minuteness, so the attacks of envy, notwithstanding their number, ought not to wound our virtue by reason of their insignificance.

Charles Caleb Colton

One respect in which I'm very much my father's son is how I feel about Joyce. 'Ulysses' is very much about daily life, when you get into this other guy's life and you learn about the things he cares about, and why he cares about them. And then, very indirectly, very subtly, you learn why politics has impacted his life, too.

Pete Buttigieg

What the essential difference between man and woman is, that they should be thus attracted to one another, no one has satisfactorily answered. Perhaps we must acknowledge the justness of the distinction which assigns to man the sphere of wisdom, and to woman that of love, though neither belongs exclusively to either. Man is continually saying to woman, Why will you not be more wise? Woman is continually saying to man, Why will you not be more loving? It is not in their wills to be wise or to be loving; but, unless each is both wise and loving, there can be neither wisdom nor love.

Henry David Thoreau

There is no more reason why the features belonging to a picture should be distorted for the purpose of such imaginative suggestion than that the poet's metaphors should spoil his words for the ordinary uses of man.

William H. Hunt

It normally happens that if you put two words together, or two syllables together, one of them will attract more weight, more emphasis, than the other. In other words, most so-called spondees can be read as either iambs or trochees.

James Fenton

Who cares if they throw a football that has no air pressure? What does it matter? Why don't we let the quarterbacks do whatever they want to the football? I don't understand why there's any rules.