# General Discussion > Opinions >  The beauty of words

## Rachel

Is there a poem that moves you?
Do you have a song that makes you glad? 
What words inspire you?
What speeches make you mad?
For emotions the key, the ability to move with words alone.
So dont be a hick and post something that will make our minds tick !  :Smiling:

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## Rachel

In that last dance of chances
I shall partner you no more.
I shall watch another turn you
As you move across the floor.

In that last dance of chances
When I bid your life goodbye
I will hope she treats you kindly.
I will hope you learn to fly.

In that last dance of chances
When I know youll not be mine
I will let you go with longing
And the hope that youll be fine.

In that last dance of chances
We shall know each others minds.
We shall part with our regrets
When the tie no longer binds.

The fools farewell  taken from Fools Fate by Robin Hobb.
Id been following the story from the beginning, and when I read this I wept.

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## Rachel

WHAT IS LIFE?

Life is just this thing that people do when theyre not totally dead, man.
There is, like, this other school of thought which believes life to be a bowl of cherries, but I submit that they can be clearly told apart by the following method: take the object under consideration and discharge a completely humungous shotgun into it from like, about this far away. 
If it sort of makes this weird little eeeeee/iik noise, kicks its legs up and down for a while and then lies still, it was probably life. 
If, on the other hand, it just leaves this funny stain on the carpet but is otherwise totally unexceptional, then, in my opinion, it was probably a bowl of cherries, man. Better luck next time.

Taken from the introduction from D.R & Quinchs totally awesome GUIDE TO LIFE by Alan Moore & Alan Davis.
When I was a child, it brought laughter to wash away the pain.

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## Rachel

"Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do."

Oscar Wilde.
Its just so true.

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## Frank D. White

All the psalms and a lot of hymns are very meaningful.

Frank

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## jeisan

i don't like the phrase "life is short"

life is the longest thing anyone ever does.

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## Hachiko

I know one phrase that motivates me...
"Carpe Diem."

and a slogan...
"And THAT, my friend, is the bottom line."

and a slang exclamation...
"Boo yah shakah!"

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## Rachel

"Imagination is more important than knowledge..."
Albert Einstein.
A quote I've lived by for most of my life. Its become something of a personal motto for me.
 :Cool:

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## EscaFlowne

Most of my quotes would come from a rapper name NAs
Very....intelligent, street wise, man who has been inspirational since 18!

A good one of his quotes from a song is in my signature.

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## kirei_na_me

> "Imagination is more important than knowledge..."
> Albert Einstein.
> A quote I've lived by for most of my life. Its become something of a personal motto for me.


That's a good one, Rachel.  :Cool:

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## kirei_na_me

"You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation." --Plato

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." --William Shakespeare, from "As You Like It"

"The only abnormality is the incapacity to love." --Anais Nin

I have so many! Most songs by Tori Amos and Morrissey. I'll be back!  :Poh:

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## playaa

Escaflowne, NAS is good..

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## EscaFlowne

show ya right! i'm post some more for the masess. Everybody will be introduced to Nas  :Cool:

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## TwistedMac

i have one that touches something special inside me..

"woodman, touch not that tree
hurt not a single baugh
in youth it sheltered me
and i shall protect it now"

(not sure about the spelling of baugh =P)

i just love his devotion to the tree from his youth.. it's beautiful... can't remember who wrote it htough >_<

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## EscaFlowne

What if heaven was a mile away-
and you can ride by the gates-
Would you try to run inside when it opens-
Would you try to die today-
Would you pray loud and finally believe in his power-
Even if you couldn't see, but you could feel but you still doubted-
How would you start acting-
Would you try to put the keys-
Would you try to put the ki's down-
Thinking every drug sell that you make in the streets He can see now-
Would a fiend even want to get high, would he stop smoking-
If he knew on his own two feet he could just stroll in-
To get away and escape from the craziness-
And I bet you there's a Heaven for an atheist-

-Nas *If heaven was a mile away*-
 :Sou ka:

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## Rachel

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.

Taken from 'Hagakure' by Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
I've found this to be very useful since I came out. Whats the point of hiding myself away if I'm going to get abuse anyway. Better to accept the abuse as a fact of life and live my life fully in the open.

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## EscaFlowne

No ideals original, there's nothing new under the sun.
Why you base your happeiness on material women and large paper.
That means your inferior not major.
-NAs- No ideals original.

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## Mandylion

I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. - Milton _Areopagitica._


T was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe. 
- Carroll _Through the Looking-glass_

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## Jean-Francois

Have you ever noticed that the reversed spelling of "stressed" = "desserts" ?

So, next time when you are feeling a little stressed, maybe a little desserts can help. 
It is probably the work of God.

Or, maybe not...
More desserts = Gaining more weight = More stressed

It is indeed a trap devised by Satan to lure us into Fat Camp which is another Hell, except this one is on Earth!

Behind the beauty of words, there maybe a fat camp/hell waiting for YOU ...  :Balloon:

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## Rachel

"Degenerates are our specialty, we cover up things every day of the week that would embarress the Marquis de Sade"
Secret Service Agent to Hunter.S.Thompson about politicians on the campaign trail.

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## playaa

My signature... from Vash in Trigun.

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## EscaFlowne

> No ideals original, there's nothing new under the sun.
> Why you base your happeiness on material women and large paper.
> That means your inferior not major.
> -NAs- No ideals original.


Made a mistake in this post ^^
"No ideals original , there's nothing new under the sun.
It's never what you did but how its done.
What you base your happiness on material women and large paper.
That means you inferior not major."

New Quote is in my sig.  :Balloon:  I love this smiley. but its not better then  :Poh:

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## lexico

For whom the bell tolls (No man is an island) 
by John Donne 

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee. 

John Donne
Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

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## Tsuyoiko

I love quotations. They are the best way to know that someone, who may be distant from me in time and space, has the same hopes and fears that I do. I love the way someone else has found the words to describe exactly how I am feeling. I even remember exactly when I fell in love with quotations. When I was 13 my Dad told me these two, and then I could see quotations everywhere:



> My mind moves mountains by itself


and



> He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool, shun him
> He who knows not and knows that he knows not can be taught, teach him
> He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep, wake him
> He who knows and knows that he knows is a prophet, follow him.


The second one still gives me goosebumps - it is the fact that I can't tell a fool from a prophet that really gets me.
Around the same time my Dad also introduced me to Jethro Tull (the band, not the inventor of the seed drill!). There is a load of wisdom in their songs, but I like this especially:



> He who made kittens put snakes in the grass

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## Rich303

''The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long''

That was said by Dr.Tyrell, in Bladerunner.

I am also very moved when I hear Martin Luther King's speeches.
Actually, that kind of links to my first one, as M.L.K was taken from us long before his time.

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## CreativeChaos

"To Dream the Impossible Dream"

"To march into hell for a heavenly cause."

"And the world will be better for this, that one man, torn and covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage, to reach the unreachable stars."

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## SQU

nothing is imposible, even possible says im possible

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## Gusar

> "Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do."
> 
> Oscar Wilde.
> Its just so true.


That one is great  :Good Job:  I've never heard that one before! So this is it, Germans simply have nothing better to do!

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## dmdiannemorales

*M*emories will fade
*A*cceptance is needed
*R*eminiscing is your habit 
It's not good, that must be *V*anished,
*I*n order to forget him
Move on and *N*ever turn your back again.


Poem for someone.

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## hope

Well the ancient Scandinavians believed words were "magical". I suppose if used right they still can be!

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## JinJin

I don't know why but the song of Benassi Brothers "Hit my heart" makes my fly and cheer and dance and dream))))

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## Alcuin

I've always enjoyed the poem '*Inversnaid*' by *Gerard Manley Hopkins*

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## ruskabajka

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes in to us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well the pleasure, the privilege is mine

the Smiths

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## mitty

"Life is short. Smile while you still have teeth."

Mallory Hopkins

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## Angela

^^ Now, that's really good; the kind of humor I like.

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## Angela

> ^^ Now, that's really good; the kind of humor I like.


I've posted a lot of poems that are meaningful to me in the poetry thread. There are poems which, whether or not they are particularly meaningful to me, I always remember for the "words" themselves. They're usually lines with a lot of alliteration, or wonderful rhyming and meter, which reminds you that poetry was meant to be sung, originally. They are lines which must be spoken aloud to get the full "music" of them. This is why if at all possible you should try to read poetry in the original. These things just don't translate into another language.

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is a great example:

Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before

Or Shakespeare...
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes; A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life.

These are both profound and beautiful...

Some prose can also contain memorable poetic lines.

James Joyce:
His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I find that the work of Maya Angelou, whom I adore, has a lot of this...
Up the aisle, the moans and screams merged with the sickening smell of woolen black clothes worn in summer weather and green leaves wilting over yellow flowers.

Sometimes I can't forget a poem even if it really means nothing emotionally or philosophically to me, says nothing profound, but purely for the poetical "language". One great example is Coleridge's Kubla Khan. It's hypnotic, and demands to be proclaimed aloud. 
https://interestingliterature.com/20...es-kubla-khan/

Edited for punctuation

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## Mayama

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (often shortened to Huck Finn) is a novel written by Mark Twain and published in 1884. It is commonly regarded one of the Great American Novels, and is one of the first major American novels written in the vernacular, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels. 

The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. By satirizing a Southern antebellum society that was already anachronistic at the time of its publication, the book is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism. The drifting journey of Huck and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature. I like also read about it here — https://taiiyabilanna.kinja.com/sati...=1551108397944

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