“It is the human that demands his speech
From beasts or from the incommunicable mass.”

— Wallace Stevens

"Less and Less Human, O Savage Spirit"
Transport to Summer (1947)
Context: p> If there must be a god in the house, must be,
Saying things in the room and on the stair,Let him move as the sunlight moves on the floor,
Or moonlight, silently, as Plato's ghostOr Aristotle's skeleton. Let him hang out
His stars on the wall. He must dwell quietly.He must be incapable of speaking, closed,
As those are: as light, for all its motion, is;As color, even the closest to us, is;
As shapes, though they portend us, are.It is the human that is the alien,
The human that has no cousin in the moon.It is the human that demands his speech
From beasts or from the incommunicable mass.If there must be a god in the house, let him be one
That will not hear us when we speak: a coolnessA vermillioned nothingness, any stick of the mass
Of which we are too distantly a part.</p

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 "It is the human that demands his speech From beasts or from the incommunicable mass." by Wallace Stevens?

Wallace Stevens 278

American poet 1879–1955

Related quotes

“If there must be a god in the house, must be,
Saying things in the room and on the stair,

Let him move as the sunlight moves on the floor,
Or moonlight, silently, as Plato's ghost

Or Aristotle's skeleton. Let him hang out
His stars on the wall. He must dwell quietly.

He must be incapable of speaking, closed,
As those are: as light, for all its motion, is;

As color, even the closest to us, is;
As shapes, though they portend us, are.

It is the human that is the alien,
The human that has no cousin in the moon.

It is the human that demands his speech
From beasts or from the incommunicable mass.

If there must be a god in the house, let him be one
That will not hear us when we speak: a coolness

A vermillioned nothingness, any stick of the mass
Of which we are too distantly a part.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

"Less and Less Human, O Savage Spirit"
Transport to Summer (1947)

“The ability to make love frivolously is the chief characteristic which distinguishes human beings from the beasts.”

Heywood Broun (1888–1939) American sportswriter

“I watch over you betimes to protect you from wild beasts in human form.”

Ignatius of Antioch (35–108) Patriarch of Antioch and martyr saint

4:2
Epistle to the Smyrnaeans

“Thus they let their anger and fury take from them the sense of humanity, and demonstrated that no beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.”

Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

"The Life of Cicero"

“Humankind is commanded to ascend from savagery. This is God's mandate, which cries out from the epicenter of our being: the imperative to mount from the base to the noble, from the savage to the civil, from beast to human.”

Steven Pressfield book Last of the Amazons

Theseus p. 119
Last of the Amazons (2002)

“We do not demand for our own people any more than the basic human rights which we would extend to every nation, people and tribe on this planet: the right to preserve their own territory, traditions and ethnic identity. The right to preserve, in other words, the things which, by marking their differences from the mass of humanity, make them human and turn their society from an ant heap into a community.”

Nick Griffin (1959) British politician

Nick Griffin, The BNP: Anti-asylum protest, racist sect or power-winning movement? http://web.archive.org/web/20030605150634/http://www.bnp.org.uk/articles/race_reality.htm

“Mass culture is a way to escape from the psychological suffering that comes with that insight into the human condition, an escape alternative to the one preached by world religions. Mass culture is a modern invention to escape from existential anguish.”

Piero Scaruffi (1955) Italian writer

Elitist Art, Unpopular Art and Popular Art http://scaruffi.com/phi/syn157.html

“Take the good speech from whoever said it even if his practice was not accordingly.”

Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) fifth of the Twelve Shia Imams

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.75, p. 170

“Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"The Art of Donald McGill" (1941)

“A skilled commander seeks victory from the situation and does not demand it of his subordinates.”

Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty

Variant: The expert in battle seeks his victory from strategic advantage and does not demand it from his men.
Source: The Art of War, Chapter V · Forces

“It is the human that demands his speechFrom beasts or from the incommunicable mass.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Wallace Stevens 278

Related quotes

Related topics

“It is the human that demands his speech
From beasts or from the incommunicable mass.”