Wallace Stevens Quotes

Mind is all that counts.

He knew that he was the stuff of which fanatics and madmen are made and that he had turned his destiny as if with his bare will. He kept himself upright on a very narrow line between madness and emptiness and when the time came for him to lose his balance he intended to lurch toward emptiness and fall on the side of his choice.

The poet represents the mind in the act of defending us against itself.

The mind is stronger than any muscle.

The mind always fails first, not the body. The secret is to make your mind work for you, not against you.

Your mind-set is your primary weapon

The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.

To live, is to suffer; and the honest man is always fighting to be master of his own mind.

I want to think and at the same time that's the last thing in the world I want to do.

I should never be left alone with my mind for too long.

Words betrayed her: beautiful butterflies in her mind; dead moths when she opened her mouth for their release into the world.

It's a most distressing affliction to have a sentimental heart and a skeptical mind.

Something in her brain that still remained calm told her that she was doing a very foolish thing indeed.

The mind scolds the heart, which makes excuses and goes its own way.

There may be a million microbes of misery floating about us. Never mind! They dare not approach us, they have no power to get a hold on us, until the mind is weakened.

I felt a Cleaving in my Mind- As if my Brain had split- I tried to match it- Seam by Seam- But could not make it fit.

I have had my share of sorrows-more than the common lot, perhaps, but I have borne them ill. I have broken where I should have bent; and have mused and brooded, when my spirit should have mixed with all God's great creation.

The tremendous world I have inside my head. But how free myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it. That, indeed, is why I am here, that is quite clear to me.

I don't think it's tough to get there mentally. Your mind is saying, 'You know how to do this.' But your body doesn't always respond.

The enemy is always in the mind.

We all carry within us places of exile, our crimes, our ravages. Our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to transform them in ourselves and others.

Mind is the great lever of all things.

Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words.