“Sometimes it is necessary
To reteach a thing its loveliness”

— Galway Kinnell

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Galway Kinnell 10

Poet 1927–2014

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“… it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing…”

Galway Kinnell (1927–2014) Poet

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 1
Endymion (1818)
Context: A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”

John Keats Endymion

Bk. I, l. 1
Endymion (1818)

“All things are beautiful
Because of something lovelier than themselves,
Which breathes within them, and will never die.”

Lucy Larcom (1824–1893) American teacher, poet, author

Introductory poem.
Poems (1869)
Context: This is a haunted world. It hath no breeze
But is the echo of some voice beloved:
Its pines have human tones; its billows wear
The color and the sparkle of dear eyes.
Its flowers are sweet with touch of tender hands
That once clasped ours. All things are beautiful
Because of something lovelier than themselves,
Which breathes within them, and will never die. —
Haunted,—but not with any spectral gloom;
Earth is suffused, inhabited by heaven.

“And lovelier things have mercy shown
To every failing but their own,
And every woe a tear can claim
Except an erring sister's shame.”

George Gordon Byron The Giaour

Source: The Giaour (1813), Line 418.

“I have sometimes suspected that the only thing that holds no mystery is happiness, because it is its own justification.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

He sospechado alguna vez que la única cosa sin misterio es la felicidad, porque se justifica por sí sola.
"Unworthy", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Variant: I have thought from time to time that the only thing without mystery is happiness, since it justifies itself.

“I have hinted that what people are afraid of in democracy is less the thing itself than what they conceive to be its necessary adjuncts and consequences.”

James Russell Lowell (1819–1891) American poet, critic, editor, and diplomat

On Democracy (6 October 1884)
Context: I have hinted that what people are afraid of in democracy is less the thing itself than what they conceive to be its necessary adjuncts and consequences. It is supposed to reduce all mankind to a dead level of mediocrity in character and culture, to vulgarize men's conceptions of life, and therefore their code of morals, manners, and conduct — to endanger the rights of property and possession. But I believe that the real gravamen of the charges lies in the habit it has of making itself generally disagreeable by asking the Powers that Be at the most inconvenient moment whether they are the powers that ought to be. If the powers that be are in a condition to give a satisfactory answer to this inevitable question, they need feel in no way discomfited by it.