Robert Graves quotes - page 2

New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return. (Robert Graves)
If I were a young man With my bones full of marrow, Oh, if I were a bold young man Straight as an arrow, I'd store up no virtue For Heaven's distant plain, I'd live at ease as I did please And sin once again. View quote
Robert Graves
When I'm killed, don't think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there's one thing that I know well, I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell! View quote
Robert Graves
All saints revile her, and all sober men Ruled by the God Apollo's golden mean - In scorn of which we sailed to find her In distant regions likeliest to hold her Whom we desired above all things to know, Sister of the mirage and echo. View quote
Robert Graves
Professor Edgeworth, of All Souls', avoided conversational English, persistently using words and phrases that one expects to meet only in books. One evening, Lawrence returned from a visit to London, and Edgeworth met him at the gate. "Was it very caliginous in the metropolis?""Somewhat caliginous, but not altogether inspissated," Lawrence replied gravely. View quote
Robert Graves
Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark - a shining space With the grave's narrowness, though not its peace. View quote
Robert Graves
It doesn't matter what's the cause, What wrong they say we're righting, A curse for treaties, bonds and laws, When we're to do the fighting! View quote
Robert Graves
Then all you lovers have good heed Vex not young Love in word or deed: Love never leaves an unpaid debt, He will not pardon nor forget. View quote
Robert Graves
The holiest, cruellest pains I feel, Die stillborn, because old men squeal For something new: "Write something new: We've read this poem - that one too, And twelve more like 'em yesterday?" View quote
Robert Graves
Down, wanton, down! Have you no shame That at the whisper of Love's name, Or Beauty's, presto! up you raise Your angry head and stand at gaze? View quote
Robert Graves
Let Cupid smile and the fiend must flee; Hey and hither, my lad. (Robert Graves)
And what of home - how goes it, boys, While we die here in stench and noise? View quote
Robert Graves
Trench stinks of shallow buried dead Where Tom stands at the periscope, Tired out. After nine months he's shed All fear, all faith, all hate, all hope. View quote
Robert Graves
Christ of His gentleness Thirsting and hungering, Walked in the wilderness; Soft words of grace He spoke Unto lost desert-folk That listened wondering. View quote
Robert Graves
There was a daily exchange of courtesies between our machine guns and the Germans' at stand-to; by removing cartridges from the ammunition-belt one could rap out the rhythm of the familiar prostitutes' call: "MEET me DOWN in PICC-a-DILL-y", to which the Germans would reply, though in slower tempo, because our guns were faster than theirs: "YES, with-OUT my DRAWERS ON!" View quote
Robert Graves
Love, Fear and Hate and Childish Toys Are here discreetly blent; Admire, you ladies, read, you boys, My Country Sentiment. View quote
Robert Graves
Wisdom made him old and wary Banishing the Lords of Faery. Wisdom made a breach and battered Babylon to bits: she scattered To the hedges and ditches All our nursery gnomes and witches. View quote
Robert Graves
One gets to the heart of the matter by a series of experiences in the same pattern, but in different colors. View quote
Robert Graves
Genius not only diagnoses the situation but supplies the answers. View quote
Robert Graves
Athenodorus used to stroke his beard slowly and rhythmically as he talked, and told me once that it was this that made it grow so luxuriantly. He said that invisible seeds of fire streamed off from his fingers, which were food for the hairs. This was a typical Stoic joke at the expense of Epicurean speculative philosophy. View quote
Robert Graves
Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling, Do not forget what flowers The great boar trampled down in ivy time. Her brow was creamy as the crested wave, Her sea-blue eyes were wild But nothing promised that is not performed. (Robert Graves)
We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall. View quote
Robert Graves
Riding on the shell and shot. He smites you down, he succours you, And where you seek him, he is not. View quote
Robert Graves
One, two and many: flesh had made him blind, Flesh had one pleasure only in the act, Flesh set one purpose only in the mind - Triumph of flesh and afterwards to find Still those same terrors wherewith flesh was racked. View quote
Robert Graves
They multiplied into the Sirens' throng, Forewarned by fear of whom he stood bound fast Hand and foot helpless to the vessel's mast, Yet would not stop his ears: daring their song He groaned and sweated till that shore was past. View quote
Robert Graves