... until both employers' and workers' groups assume responsibility for chastising their own recalcitrant children, they can vainl...y bay the moon about "ignorant" and "unfair" public criticism. Moreover, their failure to impose voluntarily upon their own groups codes of decency and honor will result in more and more necessity for government control.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Treading the soil of the moon, palpating its pebbles, tasting the panic and splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one's sto...mach the separation from terra ... these form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known ... this is the only thing I can say about the matter. The utilitarian results do not interest me.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every time we get near the land you get that look on your face. When a man goes to sea, he ought to give up thinking about things ...on shore. Land don't want him no more. I've had me share of things go wrong and all come from the land. Now I'm through with the land and the land's through with me.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, "I ha...ve no pleasure in them"; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain; in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly; when the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets; before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits--like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing b...eautiful women, flying thought the stratosphere or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits--involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding--inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, a Roosevelt can feel themselves to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, a Blake. Understanding is for ever unattainable. Therein lies the inevitablility of failure in embarking upon its quest, which is none the less the only one worthy of serious attention.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The moon has nothing to be sad about, Staring from her hood of bone.... She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
She cried and prayed, but what good are prayers and orations when comes this last hour that the Book talks about: when the moon go...es out and the stars go out and the wax of the clouds masks the sun. When the courageous Negro says, "I am tired," and the Negress stops grinding the corn because she is tired. When there is a bird in the woods laughing like a rusty rattle and those who sing are sitting in a circle without a word and without a sound and those who cry run around Main Street and cry, "Help me, help me! because today we bury our man and he is going to the graveyard, to his tomb, to dust."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The skreak and skritter of evening gone And grackles gone and sorrows of the sun,... The sorrows of sun, too, gone . . . the moon and moon, The yellow moon of words about the nightingale In measureless measures, not a bird for me....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When camping in such a wilderness as this, you are prepared to hear sounds from some of its inhabitants which will give voice to i...ts wildness. Some idea of bears, wolves, or panthers runs in your head naturally, and when this note is first heard very far off at midnight, as you lie with your ear to the ground,--the forest being perfectly still about you, you take it for granted that it is the voice of a wolf or some other wild beast, for only the last part is heard when at a distance,--you conclude that it is a pack of wolves, baying the moon, or, perchance, cantering after a moose.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »