Louis MacNeice quotes: top famous quotes and sayings by Louis MacNeice

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Top Louis MacNeice Quotes

Browse top 16 most favorite famous quotes and sayings by Louis MacNeice.

Favorite Louis MacNeice Quotes

1. "Give those who are gentle strength,Give those who are strong a generous imagination,And make their half-truth true and let the crooked Footpath find its parent road at length....For never to beginAnything new because we know there is nothingNew, is an academic sophistry--The original sin.I have already had friendsAmong things and hours and peopleBut taking them one by one--odd hours and passing people;Now I must make amendsAnd try to correlate event with instinctAnd me with you or you with you with all,No longer think of time as a waterfallAbstracted from a river." ~ Louis MacNeice

2. "Cradle Song for Eleanor": Sleep, my darling, sleep; The pity of it all Is all we compass if We watch disaster fall. Put off your twenty-odd Encumbered years and creep Into the only heaven, The robbers' cave of sleep. The wild grass will whisper, Lights of passing cars Will streak across your dreams And fumble at the stars; Life will tap the window Only too soon again, Life will have her answer – Do not ask her when. When the winsome bubble Shivers, when the bough Breaks, will be the moment But not here or now. Sleep and, asleep, forget The watchers on the wall Awake all night who know The pity of it all." ~ Louis MacNeice

3. "And at this hour of the day it is no good saying'Take away this cup';Having helped to fill it ourselves it is only logicThat now we should drink it up." ~ Louis MacNeice

4. "Let the old Muse loosen her staysOr give me a new Muse with stockings and suspendersAnd a smile like a cat,With false eyelashes and finger-nails of carmineAnd dressed by Schiaparelli, with a pill-box hat....Give me a houri but houris are too easy,Give me a nun;We'll rape the angels off the golden reredosBefore we're done." ~ Louis MacNeice

5. "A city built upon mud;A culture built upon profit;Free speech nipped in the bud,The minority always guilty.Why should I want to go backTo you, Ireland, my Ireland?...Her mountains are still blue, her rivers flowBubbling over the boulders.She is both a bore and a bitch;Better close the horizon,Send her no more fantasy, no more longings whichAre under a fatal tariff.For common sense is the vogueAnd she gives her children neither sense nor moneyWho slouch around the world with a gesture and a brogueAnd a faggot of useless memories." ~ Louis MacNeice

6. "Thus were we weaned to knowledge of the WillThat wills the natural world, but wills us dead." ~ Louis MacNeice

7. "All that I would like to be is human, having a sharein a civilized, articulate and well-adjustedcommunity where the mind is given its duebut the body is not distrusted" ~ Louis MacNeice

8. "Corner SeatSuspended in a moving nightThe face in the reflection trainLooks at first sight as self-assuredAs your own face - But look again:Windows between you and the worldKeep out the cold, keep out the fright;Then why does your reflection seemSo lonely in the moving night?" ~ Louis MacNeice

9. "The Sunlight on the GardenThe sunlight on the gardenHardens and grows cold,We cannot cage the minuteWithin its nets of gold,When all is toldWe cannot beg for pardon.Our freedom as free lancesAdvances towards its end;The earth compels, upon itSonnets and birds descend;And soon, my friend,We shall have no time for dances.The sky was good for flyingDefying the church bellsAnd every evil ironSiren and what it tells:The earth compels,We are dying, Egypt, dyingAnd not expecting pardon,Hardened in heart anew,But glad to have sat underThunder and rain with you,And grateful tooFor sunlight on the garden." ~ Louis MacNeice

10. "September has come, it is hersWhose vitality leaps in the autumn,Whose nature prefersTrees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.So I give her this month and the nextThough the whole of my year should be hers who has rendered alreadySo many of its days intolerable or perplexedBut so many more so happy.Who has left a scent on my life, and left my wallsDancing over and over with her shadowWhose hair is twined in all my waterfallsAnd all of London littered with remembered kisses." ~ Louis MacNeice

11. "World is crazier and more of it than we think,Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portionA tangerine and spit the pips and feelThe drunkenness of things being various." ~ Louis MacNeice

12. "None of our hearts are pure, we always have mixed motives.Are self deceivers, but the worst of allDeceits is to murmur 'Lord, I am not worthy'And, lying easy, turn your face to the wall." ~ Louis MacNeice

13. "The argument was wilful,The alternatives untrue,We need no metaphysicsTo sanction what we doOr to muffle us in comfortFrom what we did not do." ~ Louis MacNeice

14. "I cannot drug my life with the present moment;The present moment may rape--but all in vain--The future, for the future remains a virginWho must be tried again." ~ Louis MacNeice

15. "World is suddener than we fancy it." ~ Louis MacNeice

16. "I am not yet born; O fill me with strength against those who would freeze my humanity." ~ Louis MacNeice

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Today's Quote

Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism."
Author: Carl Sagan