The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence. – Wallace Stevens
Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore. – Wallace Stevens
New York is a field of tireless and antagonistic interests undoubtedly fascinating but horribly unreal. Everybody is looking at everybody else a foolish crowd walking on mirrors. – Wallace Stevens
Death is the mother of Beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams and our desires. – Wallace Stevens
The day of the sun is like the day of a king. It is a promenade in the morning, a sitting on the throne at noon, a pageant in the evening. – Wallace Stevens
We say God and the imagination are one… How high that highest candle lights the dark. – Wallace Stevens
Most people read poetry listening for echoes because the echoes are familiar to them. They wade through it the way a boy wades through water, feeling with his toes for the bottom: The echoes are the bottom. – Wallace Stevens
Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates. It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god, the bearing of a man. It is not a dress. – Wallace Stevens
Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility. – Wallace Stevens
In poetry, you must love the words, the ideas and the images and rhythms with all your capacity to love anything at all. – Wallace Stevens
How full of trifles everything is! It is only one’s thoughts that fill a room with something more than furniture. – Wallace Stevens
Intolerance respecting other people’s religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people’s art. – Wallace Stevens
After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world hangs. – Wallace Stevens
To regard the imagination as metaphysics is to think of it as part of life, and to think of it as part of life is to realize the extent of artifice. We live in the mind. – Wallace Stevens