As quoted in Bharathiar's 125th anniversary tribute "The People's Poet" by N. Nandhivarman in TamilSydney (7 January 2008) http://www.sangam.org/2008/01/Bharathiar.php?uid=2727
Context: Fools! Do you argue, that things ancient ought, on that account, to be true and noble! Fallacies and Falsehoods there were from time immemorial, and dare you argue that because these are ancient these should prevail?
In ancient times, do you think that there was not the ignorant, and the shallow minded? And why after all should you embrace so fondly a carcass of dead thoughts. Live in the present and shape the future, do not be casting lingering looks to the distant past for the past has passed away, never again to return.
Other
Chapter 11 The Textbook of Love http://www.unification.net/truelove/tl1-11.html 1984-02-05
Source: The house on the hill (1949), Chapter 8, p. 105
A Treasury of Inspirational Thoughts (2004) by S.P. Sharma, p. 41.
Disputed
January 26, 1840
Journals (1838-1859)
Context: Poetry — No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know. The poet does not need to see how meadows are something else than earth, grass, and water, but how they are thus much. He does not need discover that potato blows are as beautiful as violets, as the farmer thinks, but only how good potato blows are. The poem is drawn out from under the feet of the poet, his whole weight has rested on this ground. It has a logic more severe than the logician's. You might as well think to go in pursuit of the rainbow, and embrace it on the next hill, as to embrace the whole of poetry even in thought.
