John Masefield famous quotes

I hold that when a person dies / His soul returns again to earth; / Arrayed in some new flesh disguise / Another mother gives him birth / With sturdier limbs and brighter brain.
-- John Masefield

#Mother #Giving #Soul

God dropped a spark down into everyone, And if we find and fan it to a blaze, It'll spring up and glow, like--like the sun, And light the wandering out of stony ways.
-- John Masefield

#Spring #Light #Fans

The three foundations of judgement: Bold Design, Constant Practice, and Frequent Mistakes.
-- John Masefield

#Mistake #Practice #Design

Humans consist of body, mind and imagination. Our bodies are faulty, our minds untrustworthy, but our imagination has made us remarkable.
-- John Masefield

#Art #Imagination #Mind

The days that make us happy make us wise
-- John Masefield

#Happiness #Wise

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky; and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.
-- John Masefield

#Lonely #Stars #Sea

Men in a ship are always looking up, and men ashore are usually looking down.
-- John Masefield

#Men #Ships #Boat

God warms his hands at man's heart when he prays.
-- John Masefield

#Prayer #Heart #Men

Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once in a minute something generous dies for want of it.
-- John Masefield

#Men #May #Want

Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man; it has become the amusement and delight of the few.
-- John Masefield

#Men #Community #Delight

There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.
-- John Masefield

#Beautiful #Hate #Ignorance

Most roads lead men homewards, My road leads me forth
-- John Masefield

#Journey #Men #Leading Me

Oh some are fond of Spanish wine, and some are fond of French.
-- John Masefield

#Wine

In this life he laughs longest who laughs last.
-- John Masefield

#Laughter #Laughing #Lasts

Love is a flame to set the will on fire
-- John Masefield

#Love #Love Is #Fire

The luck will alter and the star will rise.
-- John Masefield

#Stars #Luck

His face was filled with broken commandments.
-- John Masefield

#Sarcastic #Broken #Faces

All I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by.
-- John Masefield

#Stars #Ships #Tall Ships

Only the road and the dawn, the sun, the wind, and the rain, And the watch fire under stars, and sleep, and the road again.
-- John Masefield

#Travel #Stars #Rain

Life, a beauty chased by tragic laughter.
-- John Masefield

#Laughter #Laughing #Tragic

On the long dusty ribbon of the long city street, The pageant of life is passing me on multitudinous feet, With a word here of the hills, and a song there of the sea And-the great movement changes-the pageant passes me.
-- John Masefield

#Life #Song #Sea

All ye that pass by! While we least think it he prepares his Mate. Mate, and the King's pawn played, it never ceases, Though all the earth is dust of taken pieces.
-- John Masefield

#Life #Kings #Taken

Man cannot call the brimming instant back; Time's an affair of instants spun to days; If man must make an instant gold, or black, Let him, he may; but Time must go his ways. Life may be duller for an instant's blaze. Life's an affair of instants spun to years, Instants are only cause of all these tears.
-- John Masefield

#Life #Men #Years

I have seen the Lady April bringing the daffodils, Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.
-- John Masefield

#Spring #Rain #April

People who leave their own time out of their work cannot be surprised if their time fails to find them interesting.
-- John Masefield

#Time #People #Interesting

Off Cape Horn there are but two kinds of weather, neither one of them a pleasant kind.
-- John Masefield

#Weather #Two #Capes

The distant soul can shake the distant friend's soul and make the longing felt, over untold miles.
-- John Masefield

#Long Distance Relationship #Soul #Longing

Love is a flame to burn out human wills, Love is a flame to set the will on fire, Love is a flame to cheat men into mire.
-- John Masefield

#Life #Men #Love Is

So death obscures your gentle form, So memory strives to make the darkness bright; And, in that heap of rocks, your body lies, Part of the island till the planet ends, My gentle comrade, beautiful and wise, Part of this crag this bitter surge offends, While I, who pass, a little obscure thing, War with this force, and breathe, and am its king.
-- John Masefield

#Beautiful #Wise #Kings

So shall I fight, so shall I tread, In this long war beneath the stars; So shall a glory wreathe my head, So shall I faint and show the scars, Until this case, this clogging mould, Be smithied all to kingly gold.
-- John Masefield

#Stars #War #Struggle

Man with his burning soul Has but an hour of breath To build a ship of Truth In which his soul may sail- Sail on the sea of death. For death takes toll Of beauty, courage, youth, Of all but Truth.
-- John Masefield

#Truth #Men #Sea

O lovely lily clean, O lily springing green, O lily bursting white, Dear lily of delight, Spring in my heart agen That I may flower to men.
-- John Masefield

#Spring #Flower #Heart

The corn that makes the holy bread By which the soul of man is fed, The holy bread, the food unpriced, Thy everlasting mercy, Christ.
-- John Masefield

#Men #Soul #Corn

The Lord who gave us Earth and Heaven Takes that as thanks for all He's given. The book he lent is given back All blotted red and smutted black.
-- John Masefield

#God #Book #Heaven

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries; I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes. For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills, And April's in the West wind, and daffodils.
-- John Masefield

#Eye #Wind #Land

Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.
-- John Masefield

#Death #Doors

State are not made, nor patched; they grow; Grow slow through centuries of pain, And grow correctly in the main; But only grow by certain laws, Of certain bits in certain jaws.
-- John Masefield

#Pain #Government #Law

Each one could be a Jesus mild, Each one has been a little child, A little child with laughing look, A lovely white unwritten book; A book that God will take, my friend, As each goes out at journey's end.
-- John Masefield

#Jesus #Children #Book

Lord, give to me who are old and rougher The things that little children suffer, And let keep bright and undefiled The young years of the little child.
-- John Masefield

#Children #Years #Giving

When the last sea is sailed and last shallow charted, When the last field is reaped and the last harvest stored, When the last fire is out and the last guest departed Grant the last prayer that I pray, Be good to me, O Lord.
-- John Masefield

#Death #Prayer #Fire

When Life knocks at the door no one can wait, When Death makes his arrest we have to go.
-- John Masefield

#Death #Doors #Waiting

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
-- John Masefield

#Sweet #Home #Wine

Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult.
-- John Masefield

#People #Suffering #Tragedy

Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.
-- John Masefield

#Common Sense #Mixtures #Uncommon

It ought to have gangsters, and aeroplanes and a lot of automatic pistols.
-- John Masefield

#Pistols #Gangsters

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.
-- John Masefield

#Wind #Bird #West

I have seen flowers come in stony places And kind things done by men with ugly faces, And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races, So I trust, too.
-- John Masefield

#Horse #Flower #Men

Man's body is faulty, his mind untrustworthy, but his imagination has made him remarkable.
-- John Masefield

#Men #Imagination #Mind

Success is the brand on the brow of the man who aimed too low.
-- John Masefield

#Success #Leadership #Men

And he who gives a child a treat Makes joy-bells ring in Heaven's street, And he who gives a child a home Builds palaces in Kingdom come, And she who gives a baby birth Brings Saviour Christ again to Earth.
-- John Masefield

#Baby #Children #Home

Life is a long headache in a noisy street.
-- John Masefield

#Life #Long #Headache

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
-- John Masefield

#Life #Dream #Sweet

What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt Held in cohesion by unresting cells, Which work they know not why, which never halt, Myself unwitting where their Master dwells?
-- John Masefield

#Life #Cells #Salt

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?
-- John Masefield

#Home #Sick #Navy

To most of us the future seems unsure. But then it always has been; and we who have seen great changes must have great hopes.
-- John Masefield

#Life #Unsure

But he has gone, A nation's memory and veneration, Among the radiant, ever venturing on, Somewhere, with morning, as such spirits will.
-- John Masefield

#Morning #Memories #Gone

I must go down to the sea again For the call of the running tide It's a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied.
-- John Masefield

#Running #Sea #May

The Thames is a wretched river after the Mersey and the ships are not like Liverpool ships and the docks are barren of beauty ... it is a beastly hole after Liverpool; for Liverpool is the town of my heart and I would rather sail a mudflat there than command a clipper out of London
-- John Masefield

#Heart #Rivers #London

The social states of human kinds Are made by multitudes of minds, And after multitudes of years A little human growth appears Worth having, even to the soul Who sees most plain it's not the whole.
-- John Masefield

#Years #Soul #Growth

From '41 to '51I was my folk's contrary son;I bit my father's hand right throughAnd broke my mother's heart in two.
-- John Masefield

#Mother #Father #Heart

Heaven to me's a fair blue stretch of sky, Earth's jest a dusty road.
-- John Masefield

#Blue #Sky #Heaven

All the great things of life are swiftly done, Creation, death, and love the double gate. However much we dawdle in the sun We have to hurry at the touch of Fate.
-- John Masefield

#Fate #And Love #Done