Wallace Stevens quotes - page 2

Wallace Stevens was an American modernist poet and influential literary figure. Known for his sophisticated use of language, imagery, and philosophical themes, his poetry explores the interplay between imagination and reality. He became especially celebrated for works like "Sunday Morning" and "The Idea of Order at Key West." Here are 373 of his quotes:

After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world hangs.

Wallace Stevens

One reads poetry with one's nerves.

Wallace Stevens

God is in me or else is not at all (does not exist).

Wallace Stevens

A. A violent order is disorder; and B. A great disorder is an order. These Two things are one.

Wallace Stevens

That tuft of jungle feathers, That animal eye, Is just what you say. That savage of fire, That seed, Have it your way. The world is ugly, And the people are sad.

Wallace Stevens

I am the angel of reality, Seen for a moment standing in the door.

Wallace Stevens

Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.

Wallace Stevens

Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.

Wallace Stevens

Throw away the light, the definitions, and say what you see in the dark.

Wallace Stevens

It is not everyday that the world arranges itself into a poem.

Wallace Stevens

The imperfect is our paradise.

Wallace Stevens

The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else. The exquisite truth is to know that it is a fiction and that you believe in it willingly.

Wallace Stevens

The mind can never be satisfied.

Wallace Stevens

I certainly do not exist from nine to six, when I am at the office.

Wallace Stevens

Poetry is an abstraction bloodied.

Wallace Stevens

I still feel the need of some imperishable bliss.

Wallace Stevens

I am the truth, since I am part of what is real, but neither more nor less than those around me.

Wallace Stevens

Conceptions are artificial. Perceptions are essential.

Wallace Stevens

The imagination is the power that enables us to perceive the normal in the abnormal, the opposite of chaos in chaos.

Wallace Stevens

Man is an eternal sophomore.

Wallace Stevens

The death of one god is the death of all.

Wallace Stevens

To a large extent, the problems of poets are the problems of painters, and poets must often turn to the literature of painting for a discussion of their own problems.

Wallace Stevens