The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul (1994)
“To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.”
"Hélas" (1881)
Poems (1881)
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Oscar Wilde 812
Irish writer and poet 1854–1900Related quotes
1920s, Viereck interview (1929)
"Reply to Critics" in The Social Philosophy of Ernest Gellner
"Written at Mauve Garden: Pine Wind Terrace" (tr. Y. N. Chang and Lewis C. Walmsley), in Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry, eds. Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo (1975), p. 477; also in The Luminous Landscape: Chinese Art and Poetry, ed. Richard Lewis (1981), p. 57.
2009
(1826-2) The Wish
The Monthly Magazine
“I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow.”
Source: The Solitary Summer