Source: The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), Ch. 5
“The old man was sad as he sat on his porch. He knew so little of the Great Purpose.”
"The Big Hunger" (1952)
Context: The old man was sad as he sat on his porch. He knew so little of the Great Purpose. Why must his seed fling itself starward? He knew that it must — but he lacked a reason. His grandchildren played in the twilight, played space-games, although there was not yet a starship on the planet.
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), To Cowper (1842)
Context: p>All for myself the sigh would swell,
The tear of anguish start;
I little knew what wilder woe
Had filled the Poet's heart.I did not know the nights of gloom,
The days of misery;
The long, long years of dark despair,
That crushed and tortured thee.</p
Remarks at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (14 June 1956) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx; Box 895, Senate Speech Files, John F. Kennedy Papers, Pre-Presidential Papers, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
Pre-1960
“Oh! if people knew what a comfort to a horse a light hand is…”
Source: Black Beauty
Ode to the Centenary of Burns http://www.gerald-massey.org.uk/massey/dmc_burns_centenary2.htm#7 (1858)
“If we knew each other's secrets, what comfort we would find.”
Variant: If we knew each other's secrets, what comforts we should find.
“The poet is a god, or, the young poet is a god. The old poet is a tramp.”
Opus Posthumous (1955), Adagia
