Marianne Moore

"To see is to become."

"The writer's task is not to have the answer but to pursue the answer."

"Restraint is an aesthetic achievement."

"Nothing is more real than the dreams of a man who has discovered himself."

"What one means by finding the right word is the effort involved in it."

"We are not made wise by the recollection of our past, but by responsibility toward our future."

"I too dislike it—there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle."

"The strength of a nation lies in its poets and artists."

"To possess these properties, in a word, is to possess the property of possessing."

"The reward for loving is understanding."

"An animal is a creature whom we feed, clothe, and shelter in exchange for our society."

"I feel as though I were 'a palimpsest of all that I have observed.'"

"The mind of the wise is like a mirror that reflects and absorbs nothing."

"There is a difference between having heard of something and understanding it."

"I'm troubled by what we have made of ourselves and our earth."

"The cure for loneliness is solitude."

"What we want is quality, and where quality is, contentment is."

"Teaching can teach us nothing."

"The most challenging times produce the greatest capacities."

"Freedom is the power to do what you know is right."

"We are what we repeatedly do; excellence is not an act but a habit."

"In every argument there is a core of truth on both sides."

"Growth is the evidence of life."

"There is nothing so good as discipline."

"One may own a thing that does not own us."

"Technique is not a sin; it is how we say what we know."

"I love the variety of gratitude."

"The difficult it is that does not tire."

"Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work."

"What is more precise than precision? Passion."