James Richardson
American poet.
He Thought Positively till he became a euphemism for himself.
Suppose you had to remember to beat your heart, contract in exact sequence the muscles you use for every step. … Conservatism comes out of the body, the sense of many things being done for us that any attempt to re-think, or even make conscious, would fatally disrupt.
Yet sadly we feel that many of the noisiest are more interested in their indignation than in the injustice.
I’m sitting here bored, … trying to remember that everything is a complete mystery.
Judging itself brings the pain of being judged. The wicked judge mistakes this for another crime of the accused and lengthens his sentence.
The first abuse of power is not realizing that you have it.
To think yourself incapable of crime is one failure of the imagination. To think yourself capable of all crimes is another.
Path: where nothing grows.
Only half of writing is saying what you mean. The other half is preventing people from reading what they expected you to mean.
Solitude takes time. One becomes alone, like a towel drying.
Happiness is the readiness to be happy.
Water deepens where it has to wait.
I worked so hard to understand it that it must be true.
It is clear, we say, as if to see through something were to know it.
There is no road to the land without roads.
Seizing on a piece of business, I become tiny, eager, efficient: roiled water I cannot see into.
Value yourself according to the burdens you carry, and you will find everything a burden.
A strange gratitude for those I disagree with. They keep me from having to take too seriously the moments when I disagree with myself.
Easier to keep changing your life than to live it.
Envy is ashamed of itself. If it weren’t hanging back, it would go all the way to emulation and love.