Edgar Lee Masters - Spoon River Anthology (1915)

16 Sourced Quotes

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How shall the soul of a man be larger than the life he has lived?

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

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

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

Edgar Lee Masters
Out of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music.

Edgar Lee Masters
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you —
It takes life to love life.

Edgar Lee Masters
I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln.

Edgar Lee Masters
Hear me, ambitious souls,
Sex is the curse of life!

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

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

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
Why, a moral truth is a hollow tooth Which must be propped with gold.

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
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