“I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost:
And yet I am, and live with shadows tost”

—  John Clare

I am
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am: yet what I am none cares or knows, My friends forsake me like a memory lost: I am the self-consumer of my woes,…" by John Clare?
John Clare photo
John Clare 21
English poet 1793–1864

Related quotes

Henry David Thoreau photo

“I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha, for the love is the main thing, and I like him too.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/7cncd10.txt (1849), Sunday
Context: I trust that some may be as near and dear to Buddha, or Christ, or Swedenborg, who are without the pale of their churches. It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ. I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha, for the love is the main thing, and I like him too.

Daniel Kahneman photo

“I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.”

"Bias, Blindness and How We Truly Think" (2011)
Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow
Context: An experiment about your next vacation will allow you to observe your attitude to your experiencing self: At the end of the vacation, all pictures and videos will be destroyed. Furthermore, you will swallow a potion that will wipe out all your memories of the vacation. How would this affect your vacation plans? How much would you be willing to pay for it, relative to a normally memorable vacation? My impression is that the elimination of memories greatly reduces the value of the experience.Imagine a painful operation during which you will scream in pain and beg the surgeon to stop. However, you are promised an amnesia-inducing drug that will wipe out any memory of the episode. Here again, my observation is that most people are remarkably indifferent to the pains of their experiencing self. Some say they don’t care at all. Others share my feeling, which is that I feel pity for my suffering self but not more than I would feel for a stranger in pain.I am my remembering self, and the experiencing self, who does my living, is like a stranger to me.

Jonathan Safran Foer photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Katherine Mansfield photo
Jean Paul Sartre photo
Martin Farquhar Tupper photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“And yet, and yet... Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret consolations. Our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.”

And yet, and yet … Negar la sucesión temporal, negar el yo, negar el universo astronómico, son desesperaciones aparentes y consuelos secretos. Nuestro destino no es espantoso por irreal: es espantoso porque es irreversible y de hierro. El tiempo es la sustancia de que estoy hecho. El tiempo es un río que me arrebata, pero yo soy el río; es un tigre que me destroza, pero yo soy el tigre; es un fuego que me consume, pero yo soy el fuego. El mundo desgraciadamente es real; yo, desgraciadamente, soy Borges.
"A New Refutation of Time" (1946) [" Nueva refutación del tiempo http://www.monografias.com/trabajos11/filoylit/filoylit.shtml"]
Variant translations:
And yet, and yet... Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are obvious acts of desperation and secret consolation. Our fate (unlike the hell of Swedenborg or the hell of Tibetan mythology) is not frightful because it is unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and ironclad. Time is the thing I am made of. Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that tears me apart, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.
Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.
Other Inquisitions (1952)

Nicholas Sparks photo
Li Qingzhao photo

“Who sits alone by the bright window?
My shadow and I, only we two.
But the lamp burns out, there is darkness.
Even my shadow forsakes me.
Alas, alas!
I am forlorn!”

Li Qingzhao (1084–1155) Chinese writer

"To the Tune of ‘Like a Dream’", in The White Pony: An Anthology Of Chinese Poetry (G. Allen & Unwin, 1949), ed. Robert Payne, p. 300

Related topics