The universe is a continuous web. Touch it at any point and the whole web quivers.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the interconnectedness of all things in the universe.
Stanley Kunitz's quote highlights the idea that every action or change we make in the world has far-reaching implications, affecting the entire fabric of existence. It suggests that our lives are intricately linked, and even the smallest touch can resonate throughout the universe, underscoring our shared experiences and the importance of mindful actions.
In practice
During a speech on environmental conservation to emphasize the importance of preserving nature.
When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgment of the gift you have been given, which is the life itself... That work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitiude for the gift of life.
Some poems present themselves as cliffs that need to be climbed. Others are so defensive that when you approach their enclosure you half expect to be met by a snarling dog at the gate. Still others want to smother you with their sticky charms.
...few young poets [are] testing their poems against the ear. They're writing for the page, and the page, let me tell you, is a cold bed.
Writer's block is a natural affliction. Writers who have never experienced it have something wrong with them. It means there isn't enough friction-that they aren't making enough of an effort to reconcile the contradictions of life. All you get is sweet monotonous flow. Writer's block is nothing to commit suicide over. It simply indicates some imbalance between your experience and your art, and I think that's constructive.
I want to write poems that are natural, luminous, deep, spare. I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world.
The heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking it is necessary to go through dark and deeper dark and not to turn
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
An open society calls itself open to improvement. It is based on the recognition that people have divergent views and interests, and that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth.
Do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have done to thyself.
I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line.
Swans live wherever there is water, and leave the place where water dries up; let not a man act so - and comes and goes as he pleases.
That's what fantasies are for, to help us imagine that things are better than they are.
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