Women Authors From The United States

"The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down; The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown;The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May; But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way.Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes, Emphasised by strange dilations with little panting sighs."

"When you return, the youngest of the seers, Released from fetters of ancestral pose, There will be beauty waiting down the years — Revisions of the ruby and the rose."

"The starry brocade of the summer night Is linked to us as part of our estate; And every bee that wings its sidelong flight Assurance of a sweeter, fairer fate."

"The sun shall shine in ages yet to be, The musing moon illumine pastures dim, And afterwards a new nativity For all who slept the dreamless interim."

"A precious place is Paradise and none may know its worth, But Eden ever longeth for the knicknacks of the earth.The angels grow quite wistful over worldly things below; They hear the hurdy-gurdies in the Candle Makers Row.They listen for the laughter from the antics of the earth; They lower pails from heaven's walls to catch the milk-maids mirth."

"In the darkness, who would answer for the color of a rose, Or the vestments of the May moth and the pilgrimage it goes?"

"Finally she faltered; Saw at last, forsooth, Every gaudy color Is a bit of truth. Then the gates were opened; Miracles were seen; That instructed damsel Donned a gown of green;Wore it in a churchyard, All arrayed with care; And a painted rainbow Shone above her there."

"Once a pallid Vestal Doubted truth in blue; Listed red in ruin, Harried every hue;Barricaded vision, Garbed herself in sighs; Ridiculed the birthmarks Of the butterflies."

"I linger on the flathouse roof, the moonlight is divine. But my heart is all aflutter like the washing on the line."

"He'll carry me off, I know that he will, For his hair is exceedingly red; And the only thing that occurs to me Is to dutifully shiver in bed."

"Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy, And the janitor's boy loves me; He's going to hunt for a desert isle In our geography."

"Lo and behold! God made this starry wold, The maggot and the mold; lo and behold! He taught the grass contentment blade by blade, The sanctity of sameness in a shade."

"There are few efforts more conducive to humility than that of the translator trying to communicate an incommunicable beauty. Yet, unless we do try, something unique and never surpassed will cease to exist, except in the libraries of a few inquisitive book lovers."

"Through Plato, Aristotle came to believe in God; but Plato never attempted to prove His reality. Aristotle had to do so. Plato contemplated Him; Aristotle produced arguments to demonstrate Him. Plato never defined Him; but Aristotle thought God through logically, and concluded with entire satisfaction to himself that He was the Unmoved Mover."

"What the people wanted was a government which would provide a comfortable life for them, and with this as the foremost object ideas of freedom and self-reliance and service to the community were obscured to the point of disappearing. Athens was more and more looked on as a co-operative business, possessed of great wealth, in which all citizens had a right to share... Athens had reached the point of rejecting independence, and the freedom she now wanted was freedom from responsibility. There could be only one result... If men insisted on being free from the burden of a life that was self-dependent and also responsible for the common good, they would cease to be free at all. Responsibility was the price every man must pay for freedom. It was to be had on no other terms."

"Fundamental to everything the [ancient] Greeks achieved was their conviction that good for humanity was possible only if men were free, body, mind, and spirit, and if each man limited his own freedom. A good state or work of art or piece of thinking was possible only through the self-mastery of the free individual, self-government."

"The greatest hero of Greece was Hercules. He was a personage of quite another order from the great hero of Athens, Theseus. He was what all Greece, except Athens, most admired. The Athenians were different from the other Greeks, and their hero therefore was different. Theseus was, of course, bravest of the brave, as all heroes are; but, unlike other heroes, he was as compassionate as he was brave, and a man of great intellect as well as great bodily strength. It was natural that the Athenians should have such a hero, because they valued thought and ideas, as no other part of the country did. In Theseus their ideal was embodied. But Hercules embodied what the rest of Greece most valued. His qualities were those the Greeks in general honored and admired. Except for unflinching courage, they were not those that distinguished Theseus. Hercules was the strongest man on earth, and he had the supreme self-confidence magnificent physical strength gives. He considered himself on an equality with the gods."

"The Greeks were the classicists of antiquity, and they are still today the preeminent classicists. What marked all they did, the classic stamp, is a direct simplicity in expressing the significance of actual life. It was there the Greek artists and poets found what they wanted. The unfamiliar and the extraordinary were on the whole repellent to them, and they detested every form of exaggeration. Their desire was to express truthfully what lay at hand, which they saw as beautiful and full of meaning. But that was not the Roman way. When not directly under Greek guidance, the Roman did not perceive beauty in every-day matters, or indeed care to do so. Beauty was unimportant to him. Life in his eyes was a very serious and a very arduous business, and he had no time for what he would have thought of as a mere decoration of it."

"Theories that go counter to the facts of human nature are foredoomed."

"A people’s literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people, as no historical reconstruction can."

"[Happiness is] The exercise of vital powers, along lines of excellence, in a life affording them scope."

"None but a poet can write a tragedy. For tragedy is nothing less than pain transmuted into exaltation by the alchemy of poetry."

"All things are at odds when God lets a thinker loose on this planet."

"All things are to be examined and called into question. There are no limits set to thought."

"To rejoice in life, to find the world beautiful and delightful to live in, was a mark of the Greek spirit, which distinguished it from all that had gone before. It is a vital distinction."

"The anthropologists are busy, indeed, and ready to transport us back into the savage forest, where all human things...have their beginnings; but the seed never explains the flower."

"They were the first Westerners. The spirit of the West, the modern spirit, is a Greek discovery; and the place of the Greeks is in the modern world."

"Great literature, past or present, is the expression of great knowledge of the human heart; great art is the expression of a solution of the conflict between the demands of the world without and that within..."

"Mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth, and that which enables him to die for the truth."

"Even of old the Christian world, so bitterly antagonistic to any ideas not specifically contained in their creeds and dogmas, made an exception in Socrates’ case. They recognized his likeness to Christ. He was the example that a soul could be Christlike, not through grace, but by nature. Erasmus said: "Holy Socrates, pray for us." To know him is a help to knowing Christ, and it is not hard to know him. We can see him quite clearly. Plato, who drew his portrait, could not, of course, keep himself out of it, any more than Christ’s recorders could; but at least magic did not dog Plato’s footsteps, as it did everyone’s footsteps when the Gospels were written. In the fourth century B.C. Greeks had no leaning to marvels. Also in the centuries that followed no one founded a church on Socrates and built up around him a theology and hung creeds and ceremonials upon him. To see what he was, we do not have to brush anything away, except a bit of Plato. We can use him as a stepping stone to Christ, a first aid in realizing what Christ was."

"It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought — that is to be educated."

"He was, first and last, the born fighter, to whom the consciousness of being matched against a great adversary suffices, and who can dispense with success. Life for him was an adventure, perilous indeed, but men are not made for safe havens. The fullness of life is in the hazards of life. And, at the worst, there is that in us which can turn defeat into victory."

"Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. ... [T]rust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine."

"Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either of them might run out."

"Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young."

"Don't waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself."

"Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with those who are reckless with yours."

"Do one thing every day that scares you."

"Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere."

"Surprising news from New York, the whistle-blower had his whistle blown!"

"I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I’ve grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place. So let’s peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around. This is the honest way I want to live and love and write."

"An orca trainer almost drowned after its orca dragged him down in the tank. He did reveal the locations of three Al-Qaeda hideouts."

"A woman's nether regions should always be shrouded in mystery."

"(In reference to the Pamela Anderson/Kid Rock divorce) It was announced this week that these will no longer be bouncing on that."

"(On the 2006 US Midterm Elections) This week, in an ironic turn of events, Iraq brought regime change to the United States."

"(Picture of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones appear) This week, the California Raisins announced plans for a new world tour."

"This week, Donald Trump introduced a new twelve-inch doll of himself that speaks seventeen different phrases, which is amazing, as that's five more than the real Donald Trump."

"According to a new survey, 67 percent of teenagers are content or extremely happy most of the time. They're called stoners!"

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise trip to Iraq Sunday. Also surprised to be in Iraq on Sunday: thousands of U.S. troops who were supposed to be home by Christmas."

"Christian conservatives are claiming that the hit documentary March of the Penguins supports the theory of intelligent design. Meanwhile, backers of evolution claim that intelligent design is refuted in the documentary March of the Bonaduces."