"This is battle, boys. War! You are souls at a critical juncture. Either you will succumb to the will of hoi polloi and the fruit will die on the vine--or you will triumph as individuals. It may be a coincidence that part of my duties are to teach you about Romanticism, but let me assure you that I take the task quite seriously. You will learn what this school wants you to learn in my class, but if I do my job properly, you will also learn a great deal more. You will learn to savor language and words because they are the stepping stones to everything you might endeavor to do in life and do well."
"Well, I say drivel! One reads poetry because he is a member of the human race and the human race is filled with passion! Medicine, Law, Banking-these are necessary to sustain life-but poetry, romance, love, beauty! These are what we stay alive for. I read from Whitman. Oh me, Oh life of the questions of these recurring. OF the endless trains of the faithless of cities filled with the foolish... skipping... What good amid these O me, O life? Answer: That you are here- That life exists and identity That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."
"The millions are awake enough for Physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive."
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
"Try never to think about anything the same way twice. If you're sure about something, force yourself to think about it another way, even if you know it's wrong or silly. When you read, don't consider only what the author thinks, but take the time to consider what you think. You must strive to find your own voice, boys, and the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." I ask, why be resigned to that? Risk walking new ground. Now. A flame in your hearts could change the world, lads. Nurture it."
"Absolutely, Mr. Dalton, there is elegance in mathematics. If everyone wrote poetry, the planet would starve, for God's sake. But there must be poetry--and we must stop to notice it--in even the simplest acts of living, or we will have wasted the truly wonderful opportunity that life as human beings offers us."
"Truth... Truth is like a blanket that always leaves your feet cold."
"What it demonstrates is how difficult it is for any of us to listen to our own voice or maintain our own beliefs in the presence of others. If any of you believe you would have marched differently, then ask yourself why you participated in the clapping. Lads, there is a great need in all of us to be accepted. However, that need can be like a nasty current, whisking us away unless we're strong and determined swimmers. Don't insist on the separate path simply to be different or contrary, but trust what is unique about yourselves even if it's odd or unpopular. As Mr. Robert Frost said, "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I... I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.""
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Two roads divereged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
- Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
