
All the Diamonds in the World, Track 1
Salt, Sun and Time (1974)
Venus Invisible and Other Poems (1928), The Wings of Lead
Context: The gods released a vision on a world forespent and dull;
They sent it as a challenge by the sea hawk and the gull.It roused the Norman eagerness, the Albion cliffs turned red:
"You fly the wings of logic — can you fly the wings of lead?
All the Diamonds in the World, Track 1
Salt, Sun and Time (1974)
“If the world will be gulled, let it be gulled.”
Section 4, member 1, subsection 2.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III
“I felt dull and flat and full of shattered visions.”
Source: The Bell Jar
The New Day: Campaign Speeches of Herbert Hoover (1928), Campaign speech in New York (22 October 1928)
Context: My conception of America is a land where men and women may walk in ordered freedom in the independent conduct of their occupations; where they may enjoy the advantages of wealth, not concentrated in the hands of the few but spread through the lives of all; where they build and safeguard their homes, and give to their children the fullest advantages and opportunities of American life; where every man shall be respected in the faith that his conscience and his heart direct him to follow; where a contented and happy people, secure in their liberties, free from poverty and fear, shall have the leisure and impulse to seek a fuller life.
Some may ask where all this may lead beyond mere material progress. It leads to a release of the energies of men and women from the dull drudgery of life to a wider vision and a higher hope. It leads to the opportunity for greater and greater service, not alone from man in our own land, but from our country to the whole world. It leads to an America, healthy in body, healthy in spirit, unfettered, youthful, eager — with a vision searching beyond the farthest horizons, with an open mind, sympathetic and generous.
“I think hawking is the nearest thing to flying in this world.”
The Gentle Falcon (1957)
Context: I think hawking is the nearest thing to flying in this world. There you sit high up and poised light as air, the horse swift beneath you. You unhood your bird, let the jesses go and watch your falcon, its bells a-jingle, like some wild spirit take the air … and your own spirit goes with it. <!-- p. 51
“I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more.”
The Sea, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“I stand forth to challenge the wisdom of the world; to interrogate the "laws" of man and of "God"!”
Book I, Section I
The Satanic Bible (1969)
Context: In this arid wilderness of steel and stone I raise up my voice that you may hear. To the East and to the West I beckon. To the North and to the South I show a sign proclaiming: Death to the weakling, wealth to the strong!
Open your eyes that you may see, Oh men of mildewed minds, and listen to me ye bewildered millions!
For I stand forth to challenge the wisdom of the world; to interrogate the "laws" of man and of "God"!
I request reason for your golden rule and ask the why and wherefore of your ten commandments.
Before none of your printed idols do I bend in acquiescence, and he who saith "thou shalt" to me is my mortal foe!
I dip my forefinger in the watery blood of your impotent mad redeemer, and write over his thorn-torn brow: The TRUE prince of evil — the king of slaves!
No hoary falsehood shall be a truth to me; no stifling dogma shall encramp my pen!
I break away from all conventions that do not lead to my earthly success and happiness.
I raise up in stern invasion the standard of the strong!
I gaze into the glassy eye of your fearsome Jehovah, and pluck him by the beard; I uplift a broad-axe, and split open his worm-eaten skull!
I blast out the ghastly contents of philosophically whited sepulchers and laugh with sardonic wrath!