Edgar Lee Masters quotes

Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist, most famous for his "Spoon River Anthology." His work vividly captured the lives and secrets of small-town America through free verse epitaphs. He influenced modern American poetry with his innovative narrative style. Here are 26 of his quotes:

The tongue may be an unruly member-- But silence poisons the soul. (Edgar Lee Masters)
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire-It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
In time you shall see Fate approach you In the shape of your own image in the mirror; Or you shall sit alone by your own hearth, And suddenly the chair by you shall hold a guest, And you shall know that guest, And read the authentic message of his eyes. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
The earth keeps some vibration going There in your heart, and that is you. And if the people find you can fiddle, Why, fiddle you must, for all your life. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
How shall the soul of a man be larger than the life he has lived? View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
Immortality is not a gift, Immortality is an achievement; And only those who strive mightily Shall possess it. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle - And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
And when you are poor and have to carry The Christian creed and wife and children All on your back, it is too much! That's why I made the Elixir of Youth, Which landed me in the jail at Peoria Branded a swindler and a crook By the upright Federal Judge! View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
To love is to find your own soul Through the soul of the beloved one. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
In time you shall see Fate approach you In the shape of your own image in the mirror. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
To this generation I would say: Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty. (Edgar Lee Masters)
Beware of the man who rises to power from one suspender. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
Those who first oppose a good work, seize it and make it their own, when the cornerstone is laid and memorial tablets are erected. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, Anger, discontent and drooping hopes? Degenerate sons and daughters, Life is too strong for you- It takes life to love Life. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
Go by reverently, and read with sober care How a great people, riding with defiant shouts The centaur of Revolution, Spurred and whipped to frenzy, Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the sea Over the precipice they were nearing, And fell from his back in precipitate awe To celebrate the Feast of the Supreme Being. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
In my Spanish cloak, And old slouch hat, And overshoes of felt, And Tyke, my faithful dog, And my knotted hickory cane, I slipped about with a bull's-eye lantern From door to door on the square. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
Blind as I was, I tried to get out As the carriage fell in the ditch, And was caught in the wheels and killed. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
You may think, passer-by, that Fate Is a pit-fall outside of yourself, Around which you may walk by the use of foresight And wisdom. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
Work for your own soul's sake. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea. And the silence of the city when it pauses, And the silence of a man and a maid, And the silence for which music alone finds the word. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
It takes life to love life. (Edgar Lee Masters)
There is the silence of age, too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it in words intelligible to those who have not lived the great range of life. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished; And what is love but a rose that fades? View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
There is no marriage in Heaven, but there is love. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters
The mind sees the world as a thing apart, And the soul makes the world at one with itself. A mirror scratched reflects no image- And this is the silence of wisdom. View quote
Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters

Occupation: American Poet
Born: August 23, 1868
Died: March 5, 1950
Quotes count: 26
Wikipedia: Edgar Lee Masters

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