Theodore Roethke quote: "All finite things reveal infinitude: The mountain withi its singular bright shade Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow, The after-light upon ice-burdened pines; Odor of basswood upon a mountain slope, A scene beloved of bees; Silence of water above a sunken tree: The pure serene of memory of one man,-- A ripple widening from a single stone Winding around the waters of the world."

Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
THEODORE ROETHKE

In a dark time, the eye begins to see.
THEODORE ROETHKE

What is madness but nobility of soul. At odds with circumstance?
THEODORE ROETHKE

Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light.
THEODORE ROETHKE

A mind too active is no mind at all.
THEODORE ROETHKE

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.
THEODORE ROETHKE

God bless the roots! Body and soul are one.
THEODORE ROETHKE

I came to love, I came into my own.
THEODORE ROETHKE

The soul has many motions, body one.
THEODORE ROETHKE

A lively understandable spirit Once entertained you. It will come again. Be still. Wait.
THEODORE ROETHKE

Love is not love until love's vulnerable.
THEODORE ROETHKE

What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance.
THEODORE ROETHKE

Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.
THEODORE ROETHKE

I learn by going where I have to go.
THEODORE ROETHKE

Time marks us while we are marking time.
THEODORE ROETHKE

What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.
THEODORE ROETHKE

Love begets love. This torment is my joy.
THEODORE ROETHKE

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I...
THEODORE ROETHKE

What's freedom for? To know eternity.
THEODORE ROETHKE

But when I breath with the birds, The spirit of wrath becomes the spirit of blessings, And the dea...
THEODORE ROETHKE

Loved heart, what can I say?
When I was a lark, I sang;
When I was a worm, I devoured.
THEODORE ROETHKE

The stones were sharp,
The wind came at my back;
Walking along the highway,
Mincing ...
THEODORE ROETHKE

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
THEODORE ROETHKE

So much of adolescence is an ill-defined dying, An intolerable waiting, A longing for another place ...
THEODORE ROETHKE

All lovers live by longing, and endure; summon a vision and declare it pure
THEODORE ROETHKE

By daily dying I have come to be.
THEODORE ROETHKE

What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible
THEODORE ROETHKE

At a dark time, the eye begins to see.
THEODORE ROETHKE

Love is not love until love's vulnerable
THEODORE ROETHKE

God bless the roots! Body and soul are one
THEODORE ROETHKE

I learn by going where I have to go
THEODORE ROETHKE

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.
THEODORE ROETHKE

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.I learn by going where...
THEODORE ROETHKE

What shakes the eye but the invisible? Running from God's the longest race of all
THEODORE ROETHKE

And everything comes to One, As we dance on, dance on, dance on
THEODORE ROETHKE

All finite things reveal infinitude: The mountain with its singular bright shade Like the blue shine...
THEODORE ROETHKE

from I Knew a Woman

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small...
THEODORE ROETHKE

I trust all joy
THEODORE ROETHKE

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn ...
THEODORE ROETHKE

Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Ke...
THEODORE ROETHKE

How body from spirit slowly does unwind, until we are pure spirit at the end.
THEODORE ROETHKE

Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.
THEODORE ROETHKE

The Mistake

He left his pants upon a chair:
She was a widow, so she said:
But h...
THEODORE ROETHKE

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask h...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice mu...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certai...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Voting is a civic sacrament.
THEODORE HESBURGH

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Each person is an enigma. You're a puzzle not only to yourself but also to everyone else, and th...
THEODORE ZELDIN

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obs...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

With the brush we merely tint, while the imagination alone produces colour.
THEODORE GERICAULT

I am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The weakling and the coward are out of place in a strong and free community. In a republic like ours...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if Congress provided an appropriation for ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Yes, Haven, most of us enjoy preaching, and Ive got such a bully pulpit!
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Our loyalty is due entirely to the United States. It is due to the President only and exactly to the...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

My view was that every executive officer, and above all every executive officer in high position, wa...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

He has been called a mediocre man; but this is unwarranted flattery. He was a politician of monument...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

After the war, and until the day of his death, his position on almost every public question was eith...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The plea of good intentions is not one that can be allowed to have much weight in passing historical...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

No man who is not willing to bear arms and to fight for his rights can give a good reason why he sho...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Only those are fit to live who do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with a high and resolute courage. For us is...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where th...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Of all the officers of the Government, those of the Department of Justice should be kept most free f...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Every man has a right to one country. He has a right to love and serve that country and to feel that...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

My position as regards the monied interests can be put in a few words. In every civilized society pr...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the worl...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

A man must first care for his own household before he can be of use to the state. But no matter how ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihoodthe virtues...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping-grounds, we pollute...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Conservation and rural-life policies are really two sides of the same policy; and down at bottom thi...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The idea that our natural resources were inexhaustible still obtained, and there was as yet no real ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

If we lose the virile, manly qualities, and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain over ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with peop...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Anyone who refuses to speak out off campus does not deserve to be listened to on campus.
THEODORE HESBURGH

A man who has never gone to school may steal a freight car; but if he has a university education, he...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

There is something to be said for government by a great aristocracy which has furnished leaders to t...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The very essence of leadership is [that] you have a vision. It's got to be a vision you articulate c...
THEODORE HESBURGH

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trum...
THEODORE HESBURGH

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader works in the open, and the boss in...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Right up to the middle of this century all perceptions of the world around us were delivered via the...
THEODORE BIKEL

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Why on earth do you carry a mirror around with you?”
“It's purely a defensive device. We s...
THEODORE STURGEON

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after...
THEODORE RUBIN

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.
THEODORE PARKER

I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell em, Certainly I can! -- and get busy and find out h...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The old parties are husks, with no real soul within either, divided on artificial lines, boss-ridden...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer present or not gui...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loude...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Politics is the science of urgencies.
THEODORE PARKER

Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made ...
THEODORE WHITE

The idea that man is a tabula rasa, or Mao's sheet of blank paper upon which the most beautiful ...
THEODORE DALRYMPLE

If you make a living, if you earn your own money, you're free -- however free one can be on this pla...
THEODORE WHITE

The one being abhorrent to the powers above the earth and under them is the hyphenated American
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

He is like a good prewar house-solidly built. They don't build them that way anymore. He's also been...
THEODORE WHITE

In a state-run society the government promises you security. But it's a false promise predicated on ...
THEODORE FORSTMANN

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants them to do, a...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Don't foul, don't flinch. Hit the line hard.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Our fight is a fundamental fight against both of the old corrupt party machines, for both are under ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

If this country is really to go forward along the path of social and economic justice, there must be...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Far-seeing patriots should turn scornfully from men who seek power on a platform which with exquisit...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that hav...
THEODORE RUBIN

The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be sup...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where th...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly; who know the great ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

No man needs sympathy because he has to work, because he has a burden to carry. Far and away the bes...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I ha...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

I want to see you shoot the way you shout.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

In medicine sins of commission are mortal, sins of omission are venial.
THEODORE TRONCHIN

The men with the muck-rake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they kn...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Like everything else in nature, music is a becoming, and it becomes its full self, when its sounds a...
THEODORE MUNGERS

All the resources we need are in the mind
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! Tha...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

As society advances the standard of poverty rises.
THEODORE PARKER

The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousnes...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Some reformers may urge that in the ages distant future, patriotism, like the habit of monogamous ma...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

CREATIVITY is thinking up new things. INNOVATION is doing new things.
THEODORE LEVITT

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals without ever going higher than a basement.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Once in Persia reigned a king
Who upon his signet ring
Graved a maxim true and wise,
Which ...
THEODORE TILTON

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision. You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.
THEODORE HESBURGH

A man who never graduated from school might steal from a freight car. But a man who attends college ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had alrea...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.
THEODORE HESBURGH

The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.
THEODORE LEAVITT

We must remember not to judge any public servant by any one act, and especially should we beware of ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Willful sterility is, from the standpoint of the nation, from the standpoint of the human race, the ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

My hat's in the ring. The fight is on and I'm stripped to the buff.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

And now, first and foremost, you can never afford to forget for a moment what is the object of our f...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

I must learn to love the fool in me the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chanc...
THEODORE RUBIN

Let others laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You have time and eternity to rejo...
THEODORE PARKER

Let us do our duty, in our shop in our kitchen, in the market, the street, the office, the school, t...
THEODORE PARKER

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the w...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get nothing save...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

There is not a man of us who does not at times need a helping hand to be stretched out to him, and t...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Wealth and want equally harden the human heart, like frost and fire both are alien to human flesh.
THEODORE PARKER

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

At sometime in our lives a devil dwells within us, causes heartbreaks, confusion and troubles, then ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

No man is above the law, and no man is below it.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The great attraction of fashion is that it diverted attention from the insoluble problems of beauty ...
THEODORE ZELDIN

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
THEODORE RUBIN

I'd get into a room and disappear into the woodwork. Now the rooms are so crowded with reporters get...
THEODORE WHITE

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where th...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

It is very sad for a man to make himself servant to a single thing; his manhood all taken out of him...
THEODORE PARKER

A liberal is a person who believes that water can be made to run uphill. A conservative is someone w...
THEODORE WHITE

It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

It is better to be faithful than famous.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

It is easier to exemplify values than teach them.
THEODORE HESBURGH

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the co...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an Am...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

I am among those Americans whose ancestors include men and women from many different European countr...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 % Americani...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Self-denial is indispensable to a strong character, and the highest kind comes from a religious stoc...
THEODORE PARKER

The men and women who have the right ideals... are those who have the courage to strive for the happ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

It is impossible to win the great prizes of life without running risks, and the greatest of all priz...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Aggressive fighting for the right is the greatest sport in the world.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

We are a rebellious nation. Our whole history is treason; our blood was attained before we were born...
THEODORE PARKER

Ninety percent of everything is crap.
THEODORE STURGEON

Quality in a classical Greek sense is how to live with grace and intelligence, with bravery and merc...
THEODORE WHITE

Our chief usefulness to humanity rests on our combining power with high purpose. Power undirected by...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an A...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where th...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Clown and guru are a single identity: the satiric and sublime side of the same higher vision of lif...
THEODORE ROZAK

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Remorse is the pain of sin.
THEODORE PARKER

Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect.
THEODORE PARKER

The spirit of brotherhood recognizes of necessity both the need of self-help and also the need of he...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

[America is] a rebellious nation. Our whole history is treason; our blood was attained before we wer...
THEODORE PARKER

My hat is in the ring.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he should be able and willing...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

The men with the muck-rake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they k...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood—the virt...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting, but never hit soft.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square dea...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Theodore Roethke

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