A Quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness; this power arises from within...could this influence be durable in its original purity and force, it is impossible to predict the greatness of the result; but when composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline; and the most glorious poetry that has been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conceptions of the poet.
Related Quotes
Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, 'I will compose poetry.' The greatest poet even cannot say it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness...and the conscious portions of our natures are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure.
I have been looking for a name for years and of course it sounds like it would be easy. Americana came along for the same reason. But to me Americana means Original music with prominent folk/rock influence. Ameripolitan is Original music with prominent roots influence.
Geoffrey Hill may be the strongest and most original English poet of the second half of our fading century, although his work is by no means either easy or very popular. Dense, intricate, exceedingly compact, his poetry has always had great visionary force.
The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen among us; visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower; Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like hues and harmonies of evening, Like clouds in starlight widely spread, Like memory of music fled, Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
The original sense of the word 'influence' is 'to flow into.' For the most part, these writers that I admire... their style flows into me without my intervention, which is what explains the broad range of writers who I've been compared with; it reflects my reading.
Good poetry could not have been otherwise written than it is. The first time you hear it, it sounds rather as if copied out of some invisible tablet in the Eternal mind than as if arbitrarily composed by the poet.
It is not true that the perfection of police power is the result of the state's Machiavellianism or of some transitory influence. The whole structure of society implies it, of necessity. The more we mobilize the forces of nature, the more must we mobilize men and the more do we require order.
Poetry is one of the original arts, and it began, as did all the fine arts, within the original wilderness of the earth.
Perhaps that is nearly the perfection of good writing which is original, but whose truth alone prevents the reader from suspecting that it is so; and which effects that for knowledge which the lens effects for the sunbeam, when it condenses its brightness in order to increase its force.
Do not turn the power of your mind upon others, but turn it upon yourself in such a way that it will make you stronger, more positive, more capable, and more efficient, and as you develop in this manner, success must come of itself. There is only one way by which you can influence others legitimately, and that is through the giving of instruction, but in that case, there is no desire to influence. You desire simply to impart knowledge and information, and you exercise a most desirable influence without desiring to do so.
There is in us an instinct for newness, for renewal, for a liberation of creative power. We seek to awaken in ourselves a force which really changes our lives from within. And yet the same instinct tells us that this change is a recovery of that which is deepest, most original, most personal in ourselves. To be born again is not to become somebody else, but to become ourselves.
Let no one ever shy away from the claim that Jews have power, that Jews have influence. We have learned the terrible lesson of history; that unless we have influence and power, disproportionate to our small numbers - immoral results will occur. We need power. And we must continue to use our power. Power which we earned, power which no one gave us on a silver platter, power which we worked hard for - use that power in the interests of justice.
[T]he Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government. . . . and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence.
Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.
The discoveries of science, the works of art are explorations - more, are explosions, of a hidden likeness. The discoverer or artist presents in them two aspects of nature and fuses them into one. This is the act of creation, in which an original thought is born, and it is the same act in original science and original art.
If the poetry world celebrate its female stars at the true level of their productivity and influence, poetry would wind up being a largely female world, and the men would leave.
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