Edgar Lee Masters Quotes
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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 lanternFrom door to door on the square
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Those who first oppose a good work, seize it and make it their own, when the cornerstone is laid and memorial tablets are erected.
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Beware of the man who rises to power from one suspender.
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Immortality is not a gift, Immortality is an achievement; And only those who strive mightily Shall possess it.
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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.
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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.
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How shall the soul of a man be larger than the life he has lived?
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Blind as I was, I tried to get outAs the carriage fell in the ditch,And was caught in the wheels and killed.
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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.
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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.
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You may think, passer-by, that FateIs a pit-fall outside of yourself,Around which you may walk by the use of foresightAnd wisdom.
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And when you are poor and have to carryThe Christian creed and wife and childrenAll on your back, it is too much!That's why I made the Elixir of Youth,Which landed me in the jail at PeoriaBranded a swindler and a crookBy the upright Federal Judge!
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Go by reverently, and read with sober careHow a great people, riding with defiant shoutsThe centaur of Revolution,Spurred and whipped to frenzy,Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the seaOver the precipice they were nearing,And fell from his back in precipitate aweTo celebrate the Feast of the Supreme Being.