Bliss Carman

“What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease.”

“On the shining yards of heavenSee a wider dawn unfurled. . . . The eternal slaves of beautyAre the masters of the world.”

“THERE is something in the autumn that is native to my blood— Touch of manner, hint of mood; And my heart is like a rhyme, With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.”

“Indifference may not wreck a man's life at any one turn, but it will destroy him with a kind of dry-rot in the long run.”

“I often wish... that I could rid the world of the tyranny of facts. What are facts but compromises? A fact merely marks the point where we have agreed to let investigation cease.”

“Set me a task in which I can put something of my very self, and it is a task no longer; it is joy; it is art.”

“There is a passion for perfection which you will rarely see fully developed; but you may note this fact, that in successful lives it is never wholly lacking.”