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"Strive to know yourself, for it is the most difficult lesson in the world." - Cervantes From the extraordinary Don Quixote. The maxim "know thyself" dates back to ancient Greece, inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. In its...

"Nothing is worth more than this day." - Goethe From The Maxims and Reflections.  This is it, isn't it? When presented with the uncertainty of life and the inevitability of time, what can one do but embrace this moment? The 17th century poet...

"Imagination! Who can sing thy force?"- Phyllis Wheatley From her lyrical poem, On Imagination Phyllis Wheatley’s story is exceptional. As a young slave in colonial America, she defied every expectation by becoming a celebrated, published poet—the first African American!—and public intellectual. Despite countless...

"Even the iris bends when a butterfly lights upon it." - Amy Lowell Amy Lowell worked tirelessly to make poetry relevant again in America. She was profoundly inspired by Keats, who she credited as the unofficial, early forbearer of Imagism—an early...

Light and Shadow Who is Ferlinghetti? Visitors to San Francisco might spot his quote engraved on the concrete grounds of the Jack Kerouac Alley. It reads: “Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations.” It is perhaps this streetlight...

"Fate is a cunning hussy." - Elizabeth Gaskell An amusing zinger from an unfairly overlooked Victorian novelist. The fun passage (which defies that whole stodgy Victorian writer thing) inspired an image of fate's invisible hand coquettishly waving a handkerchief that lures us down a new road....