A Quote by Rita Dove

What's a word, a talisman, to hold against the world? — © Rita Dove
What's a word, a talisman, to hold against the world?

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If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the spoken word, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within The world and for the world; And the light shone in the darkness and Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the center of the silent Word. Oh my people, what have I done unto thee. Where shall the word be found, where shall the word Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Work, ah! that talisman to guard one against one's self.
The Cross is a gibbet - rather an odd thing to make use of as a talisman against bad luck, if that is how we regard it. Or is it, instead, a cynical reminder that Virtue usually gets pilloried whenever it makes one of its occasional appearances in this world?
Here is a sovereign talisman against regret: never do that which might engender it.
We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself.
memory is both the curse of grief and the eventual talisman against it; what at first seems unbearable becomes the succor that can outlast pain.
Oscar always opens up doors, especially the night of the Oscars. On that night, you hold that gold man, and it's like having Gandalf's staff. You can go anywhere and do anything. It's a talisman of such power.
You always hold the key of repentance to unlock the prison door. If they throw the word diversity at you, grab hold of it and say, "I am already diverse, and I intend to stay diverse." If the word is tolerance, grab that one, too, saying, "I expect you to be tolerant of my lifestyle-obedience, integrity, abstinence, repentance." If the word is choice, tell them you choose good, old-fashioned morality.
The game has such a hold on golfers because they compete not only against an opponent, but also against the course, against par, and most surely- against themselves.
We are in love with the word. We are proud of it. The word precedes the formation of the state. The word comes to us from every avatar of early human existence. As writers, we are obliged more than others to keep our lives attached to the primitive power of the word. From India, out of the Vedas, we still hear: On the spoken word, all the gods depend, all beasts and men; in the world live all creatures...The word is the name of the divine world.
I have before me God's Word which cannot fail, nor can the gates of hell prevail against it; thereby will I remain, though the whole world be against me.
The task of history is to hold out for reprobation every evil word and deed, and to hold out for praise every great and noble word and deed.
The only real argument against the Bible is an unholy life. When a man argues against the Word of God, follow him home, and see if you cannot discover the reason of his enmity to the Word of the Lord. It lies in some sort of sin.
The word 'professional' doesn't hold any magic or mystique. The people who really change the world are usually amateurs
It is our duty not to not only hold fast, but to hold forth the Word of life; not only to hold fast for our own benefit, but to hold it forth for the benefit of others, to hold it forth as the candlestick holds forth the candle, which makes it appear to advantage all around, or as the luminaries of the heavens, which shed their influences far and wide.
For eighteen centuries every engine of destruction that human science, philosophy, wit, reasoning or brutality could bring to bear against a book has been brought to bear against that book to stamp it out of the world, but it has a mightier hold on the world today than ever before. If that were man's book it would have been annihilated and forgotten hundreds of years ago.
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