WIST Quotations

Byron, George Gordon, Lord -- Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, st. 179 (1818)

Dave — Mon, 19 May 2025 20:03:08 +0000

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control
Stops with the shore.

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, st. 179 (1818)
(Source)

Davies, Robertson -- The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, ch. 20 (1947)

Dave — Tue, 18 May 2021 16:54:55 +0000

Perhaps God made cats so that man might have the pleasure of fondling the tiger ….

Robertson Davies (1913-1995) Canadian author, editor, publisher
The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, ch. 20 (1947)
(Source)

Brault, Robert -- (Attributed)

Dave — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 15:20:50 +0000

What we find in a soulmate is not something wild to tame, but something wild to run with.

Robert Brault (b. c. 1945) American aphorist, programmer
(Attributed)

Oliver, Mary -- “The Summer Day,” New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1 (1992)

Dave — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 16:12:37 +0000

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) American poet
“The Summer Day,” New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1 (1992)

Stevenson, Robert Louis -- Essay (1878-03), “Crabbed Age and Youth,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 37

Dave — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:09:23 +0000

It is as natural and as right for a young man to be imprudent and exaggerated, to live in swoops and circles, and beat about his cage like any other wild thing newly captured, as it is for old men to turn grey, or mothers to love their offspring, or heroes to die for something more valuable than their lives.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1878-03), “Crabbed Age and Youth,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 37
(Source)

Collected in Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers, ch. 2 (1881).