Laura Riding
Laura Riding
LauraJacksonwas an American poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth16 January 1901
CountryUnited States of America
conscious human nature pursuit responsibility truth
I am not 'in pursuit of truth.' It is not my 'quarry.' I am of my human nature a thinker, and conscious of need, responsibility of thinking-speaking with truth. I do not go about hunting 'truths.'
truth writing being-there
If what you write is true, it will not be so because of what you are as a writer but because of what you are as a being. There can be no literary equivalent to truth.
truth bells rings
Truth rings no bells.
truth taste firsts
we shall know that we have begun to speak true by an increased hunger for true-speaking; we shall have the whole hunger only after we have given ourselves the first taste of it.
stories telling-the-truth function
My function as a writer is not story-telling but truth-telling: to make things plain.
art mere poem poet poetry problem seem solve solved truth
To a poet the mere making of a poem can seem to solve the problem of truth, but only a problem of art is solved in poetry.
closest full further intense interest intimacy loathing love name poetic relationship sympathize understand
I feel an intense intimacy with those who have this loathing interest in me. Further than this, I know what they mean, I sympathize with them, I understand them. There should be a name (as poetic as love) for this relationship between loather and loathed; it is of the closest and more full of passion than incest.
provision attainment practicals
When ... I comprehended that poetry had no provision in it for ultimate practical attainment of the rightness of work that is truth, but led on ever only to a temporizing less- than-truth ... I stopped.
learning thinking bridges
learning can be a bridge between doing and thinking. But then there is a danger that the person who uses learning as a bridge between doing and thinking may get stuck in learning and never get on to thinking ...
spiritual religious matter
rummaging in the storehouses of religious or literary history for myth-matter for ideational uses is of the nature of spiritual vulgarity.
spiritual religion vacancy
Myth is a tale once believed as truth; believed, it is not myth, but religion. A tale once religiously believed that has come to be called a myth is something of religion corrupted with disbelief. What are beliefs for some societies but myths for others cannot fill spiritual vacancies in the life of those others.
sleep poetry listening
Poetry is a sleep-maker for that which sits up late in us listening for the footfall of the future on to-day's doorstep.
forever religion goes-on
A religion addresses the longing in us to have that said from which we can go on to speak of next and next things rightly, in their immediate time - the telling of what came first and before done forever.
religion stories may
To tell one comprehensive story of how it has happened that what is is, one which shall hold true, come what may, now-after - a story that whatever comes shall perfectly continue or confirm: such is the ideal motive of religions.