Edgar Lee Masters Quotes & Sayings

There is no marriage in Heaven, but there is love. — Edgar Lee Masters

The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his. — Edgar Lee Masters

Margaret Fuller Slack I WOULD have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Penniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep - set eyes - Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me, Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel, And I married him, giving birth to eight children, And had no time to write. It was all over with me, anyway, When I ran the needle in my hand While washing the baby's things, And died from lock - jaw, an ironical death. Hear me, ambitious souls, Sex is the curse of life. — Edgar Lee Masters

I tramped through the country
To get the feeling
That I was not a separate thing from the earth.
I used to lose myself
By lying with eyes half-open in the woods.
Sometimes I talked with animals ... — 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. — Edgar Lee Masters

William and Emily
There is something about Death
Like love itself!
If with some one with whom you have known passion,
And the glow of youthful love,
You also, after years of life,
Together, feel the sinking of the fire,
And thus fade away together,
Gradually, faintly, delicately,
As it were in each other's arms,
Passing from the familiar room -
That is a power of unison between souls
Like love itself! — Edgar Lee Masters

But a man can never avenge himself on the monstrous ogre Life. — Edgar Lee Masters

Such phantom blossoms palely shining
Over the lifeless boughs of Time. — Edgar Lee Masters

There is something about Death
Like love itself! — Edgar Lee Masters

The weal of the race, and the cause of humanity, here and now, are enough To give life meaning and death as well. — Edgar Lee Masters

Remember the acorn;
It does not devour other acorns. — Edgar Lee Masters

My name used to be in the papers daily
As having dined somewhere,
Or traveled somewhere,
Or rented a house in Paris,
Where I entertained the nobility.
I was forever eating or traveling,
Or taking the cure at Baden-Baden.
Now I am here to do honor
To Spoon River, here beside the family whence I sprang.
No one cares now where I dined,
Or lived, or whom I entertained,
Or how often I took the cure at Baden-Baden! — 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. — Edgar Lee Masters

This is a man with an old face, always old ... There was pathos, in his face, and in his eyes. The early weariness; and sometimes tears in his eyes, Which he let slip unconsciously on his cheek, Or brushed away with an unconcerned hand. There were tears for human suffering, or for a glance Into the vast futility of life, Which he had seen from the first, being old When he was born. — Edgar Lee Masters

Reckless of my mortality,
Strengthen me to behold a face,
To know the spirit of a beloved one
Yet to endure, yet to dare! — Edgar Lee Masters

Rather a thousand times the county jail than to lie under this marble figure with wings and this granite pedestal bearing the words "pro patria." What do they mean anyway? — Edgar Lee Masters

The dust's for crawling, heaven's for flying, Wherefore, O Soul, whose wings are grown, Soar upward to the sun! — Edgar Lee Masters

It takes life to love life. — Edgar Lee Masters

And then I knew I was one of Life's fools,
Whom only death would treat as the equal
Of other men — Edgar Lee Masters

The Typical American? He is sent to school Little or much, where he imbibes the rule Of safety first and comfort; in his youth He joins the church and ends the quest of truth. — 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. — Edgar Lee Masters

Genius is a bend in the creek where bright water has gathered, and which mirrors the trees, the sky and the banks. It just does that because it is there and the scenery is there. Talent is a fine mirror with a silver frame, with the name of the owner engraved on the back. — Edgar Lee Masters

The tongue may be an unruly member
But silence poisons the soul. — Edgar Lee Masters

O world, that's you!
You are but a widened place in the river
Where Life looks down and we rejoice for her
Mirrored in us, and so we dream
And turn away — Edgar Lee Masters

Many books have been written to show that Christianity has emasculated the world, that it shoved aside the enlightenment and wisdom of Hellas for a doctrine of superstition and ignorance. — 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. — Edgar Lee Masters

And 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. — Edgar Lee Masters

The soul of the river had entered my soul, And the gathered power of my soul was moving So swiftly, it seemed to be at rest Under cities of cloud and under Spheres of silver and changing worlds Until I saw a flash of trumpets Above the battlements over Time! — Edgar Lee Masters

Beware of the man who rises to power from one suspender. — Edgar Lee Masters

This is life's sorrow:
That one can be happy only where two are;
And that our hearts are drawn to stars
Which want us not. — Edgar Lee Masters

To love is to find your own soul Through the soul of the beloved one. — Edgar Lee Masters

Immortality is not a gift, Immortality is an achievement; And only those who strive mightily Shall possess it. — Edgar Lee Masters

This is Darrow, Inadequately scrawled, with his young, old heart, And his drawl, and his infinite paradox And his sadness, and kindness, And his artist sense that drives him to shape his life To something harmonious, even against the schemes of God. — 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. — Edgar Lee Masters

Work for your own soul's sake. — Edgar Lee Masters

To this generation I would say:
Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty. — Edgar Lee Masters

O maternal earth which rocks the fallen leaf to sleep! — Edgar Lee Masters

The much-sought prize of eternal youth
Is just arrested growth. — Edgar Lee Masters

Henry got me with child,
Knowing that I could not bring forth life
Without losing my own.
In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust. — Edgar Lee Masters

How shall the soul of a man be larger than the life he has lived? — Edgar Lee Masters

Back of every soldier is a woman. — Edgar Lee Masters

Why, a moral truth is a hollow tooth Which must be propped with gold. — Edgar Lee Masters

The snows and the roses of yesterday are vanished;
And what is love but a rose that fades? — 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. — Edgar Lee Masters

Did I follow Truth wherever she led, And stand against the whole world for a cause, And uphold the weak against the strong? If I did I would be remembered among men ... — Edgar Lee Masters

He stripped off the armor of institutional friendships To dedictate his soul To the terrible deities of Truth and Beauty. — Edgar Lee Masters

Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick, Tick, tick, tick, what little iambics, While Homer and Whitman roared in the pines. — Edgar Lee Masters

In time you shall see Fate approach you
In the shape of your own image in the mirror. — 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. — Edgar Lee Masters