“In time of the crises of the spirit, we are aware of all of need, our need for each other and our need for ourselves. We call up our fullness; we turn, and act.”

Source: The Life of Poetry (1949), p. 169; part of this statement is also used in the "Introduction"
Context: In time of the crises of the spirit, we are aware of all of need, our need for each other and our need for ourselves. We call up our fullness; we turn, and act. We begin to be aware of correspondences, of the acknowledgement in us of necessity, and of the lands.
And poetry, among all this — where is there a place for poetry?
If poetry as it comes to us through action were all we had, it would be very much. For the dense and crucial moments, spoken under the stress of realization, full-bodied and compelling in their imagery, arrive with music, with our many kinds of theatre, and in the great prose. If we had these only, we would be open to the same influences, however diluted and applied. For these ways in which poetry reaches past the barriers set up by our culture, reaching toward those who refuse it in essential presence, are various, many-meaning, and certainly — in this period — more acceptable. They stand in the same relation to poetry as applied science to pure science.

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 "In time of the crises of the spirit, we are aware of all of need, our need for each other and our need for ourselves. W…" by Muriel Rukeyser?
Muriel Rukeyser photo
Muriel Rukeyser 42
poet and political activist 1913–1980

Related quotes

Julian of Norwich photo

“… we need to fall, and we need to be aware of it; for if we did not fall, we should not know how weak and wretched we are of ourselves, nor should we know our Maker's marvellous love so fully…”

Summations, Chapter 61
Source: Revelations of Divine Love
Context: If we never fell, we should not know how feeble and how wretched we are of our self, and also we should not fully know that marvellous love of our Maker. For we shall see verily in heaven, without end, that we have grievously sinned in this life, and notwithstanding this, we shall see that we were never hurt in His love, we were never the less of price in His sight. And by the assay of this falling we shall have an high, marvellous knowing of love in God, without end. For strong and marvellous is that love which may not, nor will not, be broken for trespass.

“We mask our needs as the needs of others.”

Terry Tempest Williams (1955) American writer

Source: When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice

Teal Swan photo
Benjamin Spock photo

“As parents and teachers we need to bring up more of our children with generosity of spirit.”

Benjamin Spock (1903–1998) American pediatrician and author of Baby and Child Care

Source: Decent and Indecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior (1970), p. 132

Joanne K. Rowling photo

“We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.”

Joanne K. Rowling (1965) British novelist, author of the Harry Potter series

Paraphrased variant: We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
Harvard address (2008)

Peace Pilgrim photo

“The key word for our time is practice. We have all the light we need, we just need to put it into practice.”

Peace Pilgrim (1908–1981) American non-denominational spiritual teacher

Source: Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words (1982), Ch. 3 : The Pilgrimage
Context: Please don't say lightly that these are just religious concepts and not practical. These are laws governing human conduct, which apply as rigidly as the law of gravity. When we disregard these laws in any walk of life, chaos results. Through obedience to these laws this world of ours will enter a period of peace and richness of life beyond our fondest dreams.
The key word for our time is practice. We have all the light we need, we just need to put it into practice.

Frederic Dan Huntington photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. If we don't, our lives get made up for us by other people.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

The Operating Instructions in The Wave in the Mind: Talks and Essays on the Writer, the Reader, and the Imagination (2004)

Related topics