Quotable Quotes

In a few days I will be graduating from Utah Valley University with a BA in English. I'm really excited.

This is the announcement for my graduation that my wonderful sister Louise made. I was really impressed. In making the announcement my mother wanted to have a nice quote of some kind on the invitation. She sent some suggestions and had me look for others. I really struggled with this. I felt as if any quote on my announcement was suppose to summarize my education experience so far. What a difficult task, to sum up four years of my life into a few simple words. Anyway, we ended up not using a quote due to lack of space on the card. But I didn't want all my searching to go to waste so I thought it'd be fun to share the few that I found. They might come in handy to someone else.

These are the three my mother sent me:
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. - William Jennings Bryan

To reach a great height a person needs to have great depth. - Anonymous

When a man feels throbbing within him the power to do what he undertakes as well as it can possibly be done, this is happiness, this is success. - Orison Swett Marden

And these are the ones I found myself:
"Books swept me away, this way and that, one after the other; I made endless vows according to their lights for I believed them" - Annie Dillard

"There comes a time in a man’s life when to get where he has to go, if there are no doors or windows, he must walk through a wall." - Bernard Malamud

"The dedicated life is the life worth living. You must give with your whole heart." - Annie Dillard

"You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down." - Annie Dillard

"This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it." - Marilynne Robinson

"There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, everyone of them sufficient" - Marilynne Robinson

"The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don't know." - Sherman Alexie

"If you're good at it, and you love it, and it helps you navigate the river of the world, then it can't be wrong." - Sherman Alexie

"Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days." - Flannery O'Connor

"At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough." - Toni Morrison

And these  two are jokes:
"I am grateful for all those dark years, even though in retrospect they seem like a long, bitter prayer that was answered finally." - Marilynne Robinson

"Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?" - Annie Dillard

Poetry

This last Christmas I received two gifts that, until today, have been under-appreciated. From my good friend I received 101 Famous Poems and from Santa I received the two volume set American Poetry: The Twentieth Century. This weekend I was feeling a bit melancholy or pensive. While in this mood I decided it was about time to crack open those books. I rarely get to read anything for pleasure and since poems are generally shorter than novels I thought I'd give it a shot. Wow! I really loved delving into these poems. I have to say that I even took the poems to church and sneaked reading them in between the lulls. It was while reading Robert Frost's poems that I re-stumbled upon one of my favorite poems The Tuft of Flowers. I know I have shared this poem with some of you before individually, but here it is again. 

The Tuft of Flowers by Robert Frost

I went to turn the grass once after one

Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen

Before I came to view the levelled scene. 

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;

I listened for his whetstone on the breeze. 

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,

And I must be, as he had been,--alone, 

`As all must be,' I said within my heart,

`Whether they work together or apart.' 

But as I said it, swift there passed me by

On noiseless wing a 'wildered butterfly, 

Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night

Some resting flower of yesterday's delight. 

And once I marked his flight go round and round,

As where some flower lay withering on the ground. 

And then he flew as far as eye could see,

And then on tremulous wing came back to me. 

I thought of questions that have no reply,

And would have turned to toss the grass to dry; 

But he turned first, and led my eye to look

At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook, 

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared

Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared. 

I left my place to know them by their name,

Finding them butterfly weed when I came. 

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,

By leaving them to flourish, not for us, 

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.

But from sheer morning gladness at the brim. 

The butterfly and I had lit upon,

Nevertheless, a message from the dawn, 

That made me hear the wakening birds around,

And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground, 

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;

So that henceforth I worked no more alone; 

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,

And weary, sought at noon with him the shade; 

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech

With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach. 

`Men work together,' I told him from the heart,

`Whether they work together or apart.' 

(Not my image)

I really love the message in this poem. To be honest this poem mostly comes to mind those many hot summer days that I mow my parents lawn. For those of you who didn't see my parent's back yard last summer, my dad kept mowing around a small patch of wildflowers that had sprung up in the middle of the lawn. I thought of that poem and decided to continue to mow around them as well. But, this poem has spiritual and social aspect to it too. I have had a great experience re-realizing that I do not have to go through life alone. That there are people around me and people I do not see who impact my life for good and make the world as a whole a better place to be in.