Lettered Active Element

Famous quotes containing the words lettered, active and/or element:

    I dreamed as in my bed I lay,
    All night’s fathomless wisdom come,
    That I had shorn my locks away
    And laid them on Love’s lettered tomb:
    But something bore them out of sight
    In a great tumult of the air.
    William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)

    Few, if any, creatures are equally active all night.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Every American, to the last man, lays claim to a “sense” of humor and guards it as his most significant spiritual trait, yet rejects humor as a contaminating element wherever found. America is a nation of comics and comedians; nevertheless, humor has no stature and is accepted only after the death of the perpetrator.
    —E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)