A Quote by Muriel Rukeyser

What three things can never be done? / Forget. Keep silent. Stand alone — © Muriel Rukeyser
What three things can never be done? / Forget. Keep silent. Stand alone
Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you ... to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old ... Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest ting in the world ... stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death... Then you can keep Christmas! But you can never keep it alone.
In liberation, you stand alone. You stand alone because you need no supports of any kind. You need no supports because you have realized that the very notion of a separate you no longer exists, that there is nothing to support, that the whole ego experience was a flimsy illusion. So you stand alone but are never, never lonely because everywhere you look, all you see is That, and you are That.
I try to list the top three things to get done every day, and I'll be lucky if I hit all three, but it's amazing what that does to keep you on track.
We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.
Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world.
When we worship you in the form of bread... we always see you as an adult. But every year at Christmas, you reveal yourself to us as a child born in a crib. We stand in silent amazement...In silent adoration we stand before the mystery, like Mary when the shepherd came and told her what they had seen and heard: 'She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.'
The three most difficult things in life are: 1. To keep a secret. 2. To forget an injury. 3. To make good use of leisure.
Forget like a child any injury done by somebody immediately. Never keep it in the heart. It kindles hatred.
There are three things that earthly riches can never do; they can never satisfy divine justice, they can never pacify divine wrath, nor can they every quiet a guilty conscience. And till these things are done man is undone.
The thing is, one in three women in the Western world will end up having an abortion, but they never talk about it. When you keep silent about that stuff, it is because you are embarrassed by the societal distaste of the topic.
I think Ive done the best I could have done. But I keep wanting to play better, go further. There are so many sounds I still want to make, so many things I havent yet done. When I was younger I thought maybe Id reached that peak. But Im 86 now, and if I make it through to next month, Ill be 87. And now I know it can never be perfect, it can never be exactly what it should be, so you got to keep going further, getting better.
Never forget that when we are silent, we are one. And when we speak we are two.
But if Satan speaks sometimes, God keep silent, always. We have to find the answers alone.
I will never forget the first time I was teargassed or the night I hid under my steering wheel as the SWAT vehicle drove down a residential street. I will never forget that it was illegal - in St Louis, in the fall of 2014 - to stand still.
Do not keep silent when your own ideas and values are being attacked. If a dictatorship ever comes to this country, it will be by the fault of those who keep silent. We are still free enough to speak. Do we have time? No one can tell.
I have never looked into my sister's eyes. I have never bathed alone. I have never stood in the grass at night and raised my arms to the beguiling moon. I’ve never used an airplane bathroom. Or worn a hat. Or been kissed like that. I’ve never driven a car. Or slept through the night. Never a private talk. Or a solo walk. I’ve never climbed a tree. Or faded into a crowd. So many things I’ve never done, but oh, how I’ve been loved. And, if such things were to be, I’d live a thousand lives as me, to be loved so exponentially.
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