WIST Quotations

MacLeish, Archibald -- “We Have Purpose … We All Know It,” Life (30 May 1960)

Dave — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 12:07:30 +0000

There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is. It is the American Dream.

Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982) American poet, writer, statesman
“We Have Purpose … We All Know It,” Life (30 May 1960)

Part of a series of essays in Life and The New York Times on "The National Purpose."

MacLeish, Archibald -- NY Times (25 Dec 1968)

Dave — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:30:57 +0000

To see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold — brothers who know now they are truly brothers.

Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982) American poet, writer, statesman
NY Times (25 Dec 1968)

On the "Earth rising over the Moon" photo sent back from an Apollo mission. When collected in "Bubble of Blue Air," Riders on the Earth; Essays and Recollections, epigraph (1978), he phrased it: "To see the earth as we now see it, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the unending night — brothers who see now they are truly brothers."

MacLeish, Archibald -- Poems, “Author’s Note” (1938)

Dave — Tue, 21 Oct 2025 19:27:51 +0000

The one man who should never attempt an explanation of a poem is its author. If the poem can be improved by the author’s explanations it never should have been published, and if the poem cannot be improved by its author’s explanations the explanations are scarcely worth reading.

Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982) American poet, writer, statesman
Poems, “Author’s Note” (1938)
(Source)

MacLeish, Archibald -- In Charles Poore, “Mr. MacLeish and the Disenchantmentarians,” The New York Times (25 Jan 1968)

Dave — Thu, 04 Oct 2018 15:44:46 +0000

A real writer learns from earlier writers the way a boy learns from an apple orchard — by stealing what he has a taste for and can carry off.

Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982) American poet, writer, statesman
In Charles Poore, “Mr. MacLeish and the Disenchantmentarians,” The New York Times (25 Jan 1968)
(Source)