Joaquin Miller Quotations

Let us go and talk with the poets. (on arriving in San Francisco)

The soul that feeds on books alone --/ I count that soul exceeding small / That lives alone by book and creed, --/ A soul that has not learned to read.

Physiognomy is often a great falsifier, though as a rule it is honest enough.

Primeval forests! virgin sod! That Saxon has not ravish'd yet, Lo! peak on peak in stairways set- In stepping stairs that reach to God! Here we are free as sea or wind, For here are set Time's snowy tents In everlasting battlements Against the march of Saxon mind.

Knowledge is Bought only with a weary care, And wisdom means a world of pain.

The living grave of crime.

Men say, "By pride the angels fell from heaven." By pride they reached a place from which they fell!

The gold-barr'd butterflies to and from And over the waterside wander'd and wove As heedless and idle as clouds that rove And drift by the peaks of perpetual snow.

O woman, born first to believe us; Yea, also born first to forget; Born first to betray and deceive us, Yet first to repent and regret.

That man who lives for self alone, Lives for the meanest mortal known.

God's poet is silence! His song is unspoken, And yet so profound, so loud, and so far, It fills you, it thrills you with measures unbroken, And as soft, and as fair, and as far as a star.

Tis midnight now. The bend and broken moon, Batter'd and black, as from a thousand battles, Hangs silent on the purple walls of Heaven.

He gained a world; he gave that world Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!"

Is it worthwhile that we jostle a brother, Bearing his load on the rough road of life? Is it worthwhile that we jeer at each other, In blackness of heart - that we war to the knife? God pity us all in our pitiful strife

I throw a kiss across the sea, I drink the winds as drinking wine, And dream they all are blown from thee, I catch the whisper'd kiss of thine.

The biggest dog has been a pup.

I saw the lightnings gleaming rod. Reach forth and write upon the sky The awful autograph of God.

Man's books are but a climbing stair, Lain step by step, like stairs of stone; The stairway here, the temple there Man's lampad honor, and his trust, The God who called him from the dust.

Man's books are but man's alphabet, Beyond and on his lessons lie The lessons of the violet, The large gold letters of the sky; The love of beauty, blossomed soil, The large content, the tranquil toil: The toil that nature ever taught, The patient toil, the constant stir, The toil of seas where shores are wrought, The toil of Christ, the carpenter; The toil of God incessantly By palm-set land or frozen sea.

Merciful Father, I will not complain. I know that the sunshine shall follow the rain.

There are many To-morrows, my Love, my Love, There is only one To-day.

All you can hold in your cold dead hand is what you have given away.

The soul that feeds on books alone -- I count that soul exceeding small That lives alone by book and creed, -- A soul that has not learned to read.

Men lie, who lack courage to tell truth--the cowards!

He gives twice who gives quickly. credited to Publius Syrus Mimus.

Fame lulls the fever of the soul, and makes Us feel that we have grasp'd an immortality.

Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!

The bravest battle that ever was fought; Shall I tell you where and when? On the maps of the world you will find it not; It was fought by the mothers of men.

All honor to him who shall win the prize. The world has cried for a thousand years. But to him who tries and fails and dies, I give great honor and glory and tears.

UNDER THE STORM AND THE CLOUD TODAY, AND TODAY THE HARD PERIL AND PAIN - TOMORROW THE STONE WILL BE ROLLED AWAY, FOR THE SUNSHINE SHALL FOLLOW THE RAIN

In men whom men condemn as ill I find so much of goodness still, In men whom men pronounce divine I find so much of sin and blot, I do not dare to draw a line Between the two, where God has not.

Lonely as God, and white as a winter moon, Mount Shasta starts up sudden and solitary from the heart of the great black forests of Northern California