Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.

Wallace Stevens

Human Nature Water Shape

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As life grows more terrible, its literature grows more terrible.

Wallace Stevens

Grows Life Literature More

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The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself.

Wallace Stevens

World Course Itself Most

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Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking.

Wallace Stevens

Accuracy Equivalent Observation Thinking

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Money is a kind of poetry.

Wallace Stevens

Kind Money Poetry

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Most people read poetry listening for echoes because the echoes are familiar to them. They wade through it the way a boy wades through water, feeling with his toes for the bottom: The echoes are the bottom.

Wallace Stevens

Because Bottom Boy Echoes

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A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.

Wallace Stevens

Looks Man Poet Way

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To regard the imagination as metaphysics is to think of it as part of life, and to think of it as part of life is to realize the extent of artifice. We live in the mind.

Wallace Stevens

Artifice Extent Imagination Life

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Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.

Wallace Stevens

Bore Complicated Else Everything

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If some really acute observer made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex, people would forget a good deal about sex and find the explanation for everything in egotism.

Wallace Stevens

About Acute Deal Egotism

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One cannot spend one's time in being modern when there are so many more important things to be.

Wallace Stevens

Being Cannot Important Important Things

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The imagination is man's power over nature.

Wallace Stevens

Imagination Man Nature Over

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Intolerance respecting other people's religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people's art.

Wallace Stevens

Art Comparison Intolerance Itself

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New York is a field of tireless and antagonistic interests undoubtedly fascinating but horribly unreal. Everybody is looking at everybody else a foolish crowd walking on mirrors.

Wallace Stevens

Field Crowd Foolish Mirrors

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If poetry should address itself to the same needs and aspirations, the same hopes and fears, to which the Bible addresses itself, it might rival it in distribution.

Wallace Stevens

Rival Bible Fears Hopes

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Our bloom is gone. We are the fruit thereof.

Wallace Stevens

Bloom Fruit Gone Our

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The reason can give nothing at all Like the response to desire.

Wallace Stevens

Desire Give Nothing Reason

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The point of vision and desire are the same.

Wallace Stevens

Desire Point Same Vision

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It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.

Wallace Stevens

Mind Never Satisfied

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One's ignorance is one's chief asset.

Wallace Stevens

Asset Chief Ignorance

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The fire burns as the novel taught it how.

Wallace Stevens

Burns Fire Novel Taught

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The day of the sun is like the day of a king. It is a promenade in the morning, a sitting on the throne at noon, a pageant in the evening.

Wallace Stevens

Day Evening King Sun

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Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility.

Wallace Stevens

American Literature British Source

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I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections, Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling, Or just after.

Wallace Stevens

Prefer After Beauty Know

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In poetry, you must love the words, the ideas and the images and rhythms with all your capacity to love anything at all.

Wallace Stevens

Capacity Ideas Images Love

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How full of trifles everything is! It is only one's thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture.

Wallace Stevens

Room Full More Fill

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After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world hangs.

Wallace Stevens

After Final Future World

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Death is the mother of Beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams and our desires.

Wallace Stevens

Alone Beauty Come Death

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Reality is not what it is. It consists of the many realities which it can be made into.

Wallace Stevens

Consists Made Many Reality

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We say God and the imagination are one... How high that highest candle lights the dark.

Wallace Stevens

Candle Dark God High

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The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.

Wallace Stevens

Poet Merely Proves Exists

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A poem need not have a meaning and like most things in nature often does not have.

Wallace Stevens

Nature Like Poem Often

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Perhaps it is of more value to infuriate philosophers than to go along with them.

Wallace Stevens

Value Along More Perhaps

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The way through the world is more difficult to find than the way beyond it.

Wallace Stevens

Beyond Difficult Find More

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In the world of words, the imagination is one of the forces of nature.

Wallace Stevens

Forces Imagination Nature Words

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Thought is an infection. In the case of certain thoughts, it becomes an epidemic.

Wallace Stevens

Becomes Case Certain Epidemic

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Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.

Wallace Stevens

Around Depends Lake Perhaps

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Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates. It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god, the bearing of a man. It is not a dress.

Wallace Stevens

Applied Bearing Dress Found

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What our eyes behold may well be the text of life but one's meditations on the text and the disclosures of these meditations are no less a part of the structure of reality.

Wallace Stevens

Behold Eyes Less Life

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The genuine artist is never 'true to life.' He sees what is real, but not as we are normally aware of it. We do not go storming through life like actors in a play. Art is never real life.

Wallace Stevens

True Play Life Real

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"40 Wallace Stevens Quotes & Sayings

Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking.

Wallace Stevens

Money is a kind of poetry.

Wallace Stevens

Most people read poetry listening for echoes because the echoes are familiar to them. They wade through it the way a boy wades through water, feeling with his toes for the bottom: The echoes are the bottom.

Wallace Stevens

A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.

Wallace Stevens

To regard the imagination as metaphysics is to think of it as part of life, and to think of it as part of life is to realize the extent of artifice. We live in the mind.

Wallace Stevens

Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.

Wallace Stevens

If some really acute observer made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex, people would forget a good deal about sex and find the explanation for everything in egotism.

Wallace Stevens

One cannot spend one's time in being modern when there are so many more important things to be.

Wallace Stevens

The imagination is man's power over nature.

Wallace Stevens

Intolerance respecting other people's religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people's art.

Wallace Stevens

New York is a field of tireless and antagonistic interests undoubtedly fascinating but horribly unreal. Everybody is looking at everybody else a foolish crowd walking on mirrors.

Wallace Stevens

If poetry should address itself to the same needs and aspirations, the same hopes and fears, to which the Bible addresses itself, it might rival it in distribution.

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

The reason can give nothing at all Like the response to desire.

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.

Wallace Stevens

One's ignorance is one's chief asset.

Wallace Stevens

The fire burns as the novel taught it how.

Wallace Stevens

The day of the sun is like the day of a king. It is a promenade in the morning, a sitting on the throne at noon, a pageant in the evening.

Wallace Stevens

Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility.

Wallace Stevens

I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections, Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling, Or just after.

Wallace Stevens

In poetry, you must love the words, the ideas and the images and rhythms with all your capacity to love anything at all.

Wallace Stevens

How full of trifles everything is! It is only one's thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture.

Wallace Stevens

After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world hangs.

Wallace Stevens

Death is the mother of Beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams and our desires.

Wallace Stevens

Reality is not what it is. It consists of the many realities which it can be made into.

Wallace Stevens

We say God and the imagination are one... How high that highest candle lights the dark.

Wallace Stevens

The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.

Wallace Stevens

A poem need not have a meaning and like most things in nature often does not have.

Wallace Stevens

Perhaps it is of more value to infuriate philosophers than to go along with them.

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

In the world of words, the imagination is one of the forces of nature.

Wallace Stevens

Thought is an infection. In the case of certain thoughts, it becomes an epidemic.

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates. It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god, the bearing of a man. It is not a dress.

Wallace Stevens

What our eyes behold may well be the text of life but one's meditations on the text and the disclosures of these meditations are no less a part of the structure of reality.

Wallace Stevens

The genuine artist is never 'true to life.' He sees what is real, but not as we are normally aware of it. We do not go storming through life like actors in a play. Art is never real life.

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens Quotes & Sayings