81 Quotes by Stephen Spender

My single pair of eyes Contain the universe they see; Their mirrored multiplicity Is packed into a hollow body Where I reflect the many, in my one.

I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.

Never allow gradually the traffic to smother with noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Paul Valery speaks of the 'une ligne donnee' of a poem. One line is given to the poet by God or by nature, the rest he has to discover for himself.

No one Shall hunger: Man shall spend equally. Our goal which we compel: Man shall be man.

I think continually of those who were truly great.

All that you can imagine you already know.

In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic, They beg, their eyes made big by empty staring And only measuring Time , like the blank clock. No, I shall weave no tracery of pen-ornament To make them birds upon my singing tree: Time merely drives these lives which do not live As tides push rotten stuff along the shore.

So i learned both to accept myself and to aim beyond myself