W. S. Merwin Quotes

There are aspects of human life that are not purely destructive, and there is a need to pay attention to the things around us while they are still around us. And you know, in a way, if you don't pay that attention, the anger is just bitterness.

W. S. Merwin

• Life
• Attention
• Aspects
• Destructive

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Quotes to Explore

• My parents came to see me in a play at Eton when I was 16. And then, when I said I wanted to try for drama school, they knew there was enough passion there for them to be brave and back me.

  

  Damian Lewis
  • School
  • Parents
  • Passion

• If you think about it, you can have the best CGI, but you can always tell that it is CGI. Your brain can spot that is not real even though you think it looks cool. Your brain knows the truth, so you don't jump and you don't scream. It was very important for me to expose the audience to real elements.

  

  Fede Alvarez
  • Important
  • Real
  • Truth

• I believe in the promise of America. Being a Cuban refugee, having come here when I was eight, I know that this is a shining city on the hill.

  

  Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
  • Believe
  • America
  • City

• It's quite rare that you find models taken care of backstage.

  

  Abbey Lee Kershaw
  • You
  • Taken
  • Care

• The evidence of a Jewish civilization going back more than two millennia is overwhelmingly borne out in the archaeology of the region. The heritage of the Jews in Palestine is documented.

  

  Jack Schwartz
  • Civilization
  • Jews
  • Heritage

• I had two sisters carried away in a chain-gang - one of them left two children. We were always uneasy.

  

  Harriet Tubman
  • Children
  • Always
  • Two

• From my experience and understanding, I believe money follows name and fame, while recognition calls for a huge amount of sacrifice. To get something, you have to lose something. That's the rule of life.

  

  Lata Mangeshkar
  • Life
  • Believe
  • Money

• Now, everybody knows my music. So that's really cool. A lot of kids know it. Now, when I go to a sports game, everybody knows my name.

  

  Nat Wolff
  • Music
  • Kids
  • Game

• The way women today are treated in Saudi Arabia is a direct result of the education our children, boys and girls, receive at school.

  

  Basmah bint Saud
  • Women
  • Children
  • School

• I am very lucky I got fans, and I interact with them personally. I know that they have poured their love on me unconditionally, and all I can do is work hard and be kind to them.

  

  Hansika Motwani
  • Love
  • Know
  • Kind

• Socrates was famously executed for his philosophical and political beliefs. I wondered what would happen if you had a similar character, who was so relentlessly questioning of everything? In a modern society, would we be any more or any less tolerant of that kind of character?

  

  Samantha Harvey
  • Character
  • Society
  • Political

• I'm a kind person; I don't have a really nihilist streak in me, but I respond to that kind of humour.

  

  Rachel Kushner
  • Me
  • Kind
  • Person

• I found it peculiar that those who wanted to take military action could - with 100 per cent certainty - know that the weapons existed and turn out to have zero knowledge of where they were.

  

  Hans Blix
  • Knowledge
  • Know
  • Action

• I suppose I have played a lot of put-upon women, but it's never bothered me. They've never been weak – they've always got steel in them.

  

  Olivia Colman
  • Women
  • Never
  • Played

• It's incredible what happens when you explain to kids what good food is - they get so excited! They go home and tell their parents... and they're excited to cook the recipes themselves in class.

  

  Tamra Davis
  • Good
  • Home
  • Kids

• People say I have my own Cinderella story, and in a way, I guess I do.

  

  Laura Osnes
  • People
  • Story
  • Cinderella

• My schedule is so crazy.

  

  J. J. Watt
  • Crazy
  • Schedule

• A woman caring for her children; a woman striving to excel in the private sector; a woman partnering with her neighbors to make their street safer; a woman running for office to improve her country - they all have something to offer, and the more our societies empower women, the more we receive in return.

  

  Queen Rania of Jordan
  • Women
  • Country
  • Children

• I'm not a drummer anymore, on my gravestone, if there is one, if anyone writes anything about me besides hopefully being a dad, it would be that I sang in my band when I was in my 20s. So I was like, 'Yeah, I should probably focus on this a little more,' so I just practiced a lot. (When asked about his singing.)

  

  Patrick Stump Fall Out Boy
  • Dad
  • Focus
  • Band

• I don't think, in a country, you can have people thinking and feeling exactly the same.

  

  Jacob Zuma
  • People
  • Thinking
  • Country

• But above all, in order to be, never try to seem.

  

  Albert Camus
  • Try
  • Order

• Before, back in the '50s, women didn't have as many rights as men, so they had to be that stay-at-home wife and take care of the kids all day. But now, with marriage, it's a partnership. It's not like this old traditional marriage that it once was.

  

  Kendra Wilkinson
  • Men
  • Women
  • Home

• All of us are many different people over time. We have our childhood selves, people that we remember, but they're very different to our adult selves and the way that we create our own naratives is not that dissimilar, I think, to how a biographer structures their narrative of a life.

  

  Rachel Holmes
  • People
  • Life
  • Time

• There are aspects of human life that are not purely destructive, and there is a need to pay attention to the things around us while they are still around us. And you know, in a way, if you don't pay that attention, the anger is just bitterness.

  

  W. S. Merwin
  • Life
  • Attention
  • Aspects