Book I : The Beginnings, Ch. V : The Baptism Of The Penguins
Penguin Island (1908)
Context: Touched by their attention, the holy man taught them the Gospel.
"Inhabitants of this island, the earthly day that has just risen over your rocks is the image of the heavenly day that rises in your souls. For I bring you the inner light; I bring you the light and heat of the soul. Just as the sun melts the ice of your mountains so Jesus Christ will melt the ice of your hearts."
Thus the old man spoke. As everywhere throughout nature voice calls to voice, as all which breathes in the light of day loves alternate strains, these penguins answered the old man by the sounds of their throats. And their voices were soft, for it was the season of their loves.
“I believe tears are holy, because they show us that the ice of our heart is melting.”
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Barbara De Angelis 10
American psychologist 1951Related quotes
“What a sea
Of melting ice I walk on!”
The Maid of Honour (c. 1621; printed 1632), Act III, scene iii.
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 129.
“Life is only a flicker of melted ice.”
“Rain of the Absolute,” p. 25
The Sun Watches the Sun (1999), Sequence: “Skywalking”
“My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 432.
“… the floor was a stone slab of coolness, an expanse of warm ice that would not melt.”
A Strange and Sublime Address (1991)
“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.”
The Figure a Poem Makes (1939)
Context: Originality and initiative are what I ask for my country. For myself the originality need be no more than the freshness of a poem run in the way I have described: from delight to wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being, but may not be worried into being. Its most precious quality will remain its having run itself and carried away the poet with it. Read it a hundred times: it will forever keep its freshness as a petal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.
Vol. II, Ch. V Aphorisms and Extracts, p. 74.
Memoirs and Correspondence (1900)