In the works of the better poets you get the sensation that they're not talking to people any more, or to some seraphical creature.... What they're doing is simply talking back to the language itself--as beauty, sensuality, wisdom, irony--those aspects of language of which the poet is a clear mirror. Poetry is not an art or a branch of art, it's something more. If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological, indeed genetic, goal. Anyone who regards poetry as an entertainment, as a "read," commits an anthropological crime, in the first place, against himself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I thought a lot about our nation and what I should do as president. And Sunday night before last, I made a speech about two proble...ms of our country--energy and malaise.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We hear about constitutional rights, free speech and the free press. Every time I hear those words I say to myself, "That man is a... Red, that man is a Communist." You never heard a real American talk in that manner.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
--The language in which we are speaking is his before it is mine. How different are the words home, Christ, ale, master, on his li...ps and on mine! I cannot speak or write these words without unrest of spirit. His language, so familiar and so foreign, will always be for me an acquired speech. I have not made or accepted its words. My voice holds them at bay. My soul frets in the shadow of his language.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: ...it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
New ways I go, a new speech comes to me; weary I grow, like all creators, of the old tongues. My spirit no longer wants to walk on... worn soles.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere i...n the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want ... everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear ... anywhere in the world.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Freedom of speech is of no use to a man who has nothing to say and freedom of worship is of no use to a man who has lost his God.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »