Quotes from The Complete Poems (Poetry Library)

D.H. Lawrence ·  704 pages

Rating: (1.6K votes)


“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”
― D.H. Lawrence, quote from The Complete Poems (Poetry Library)


“Nobody knows you.
You don't know yourself.
And I, who am half in love with you,
What am I in love with?
My own imaginings?”
― D.H. Lawrence, quote from The Complete Poems (Poetry Library)


“What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody who wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels. Admit them, admit them.”
― D.H. Lawrence, quote from The Complete Poems (Poetry Library)


“Delivered helpless and amazed
From the womb of the All, I am
waiting dazed
For memory to be erased.

Then I shall know the Elysium
That lies outside the monstrous womb
Of time from out of which I come.”
― D.H. Lawrence, quote from The Complete Poems (Poetry Library)


Gloire de Dijon

When she rises in the morning
I linger to watch her;
She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window
And the sunbeams catch her
Glistening white on the shoulders,
While down her sides the mellow
Golden shadow glows as
She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts
Sway like full-blown yellow
Gloire de Dijon roses.

She drips herself with water, and her shoulders
Glisten as silver, they crumple up
Like wet and falling roses, and I listen
For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals.
In the window full of sunlight
Concentrates her golden shadow
Fold on fold, until it glows as
Mellow as the glory roses.”
― D.H. Lawrence, quote from The Complete Poems (Poetry Library)



“So I lay on your breast for an obscure hour Feeling your fingers go Like a rhythmic breeze Over my hair, and tracing my brows, Till I knew you not from a little wind:  — I wonder now if God allows Us only one moment of his keys. If only then You could have unlocked the moon on the night, And I baptized myself in the light Of your love; we both have entered then the white Pure passion, and never again.”
― D.H. Lawrence, quote from The Complete Poems (Poetry Library)


“You are the call and I am the answer,
You are the wish, and I the fulfillment,
You are the night, and I the day.
What else? it is perfect enough.
It is perfectly complete,
You and I,
What more⎼?
Strange, how we suffer in spite of this!”
― D.H. Lawrence, quote from The Complete Poems (Poetry Library)


About the author

D.H. Lawrence
Born place: in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England
Born date September 11, 1885
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“I think… that love encompasses the experience of the possible transition from the pure randomness of chance to a state that has universal value. Starting out from something that is simply an
encounter, a trifle, you learn that you can experience the world on the basis of difference and not only in terms of identity. And you can even be tested and suffer in the process. In today’s world, it is generally thought that individuals only pursue their own self-interest. Love is an antidote to that. Provided it isn’t conceived only as an exchange of mutual favours, or isn’t calculated way in advance as a profitable investment, love really is a unique trust placed in chance. It takes us into key areas of the experience of what is difference and, essentially, leads to the idea that you can experience the world from the perspective of difference. In this respect it has universal implications: it is an individual experience of potential universality, and is thus central to philosophy, as Plato was the first to intuit.”
― Alain Badiou, quote from In Praise of Love


“Dr. N: How do you manage to hold each other with no bodies?
S: (with a sigh of exasperation at me) We envelop each other in light, of course.
Dr. N: Tell me what that is like for spirits?
S: Like being wrapped in a bright-light blanket of love.”
― Michael Newton, quote from Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives


“He called her''daughter of Abraham,' which likely sent a shock wave through the room; it was the first time the phrase had ever been spoken. People had only ever heard 'sons of Abraham'--never daughters. But at the sound of Jesus' words daughter of Abraham, he gave her a place to stand alongside the sons, especially the ones snarling with their sense of ownership and exclusivity over it all, watching.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women


“I think we all need to remember our capacity for empathy and through education, stretch ourselves to imagine what it is like to be in someone else’s shoes and wish every person the same pair of shoes that we would like to wear.”
― Zlata Filipović, quote from Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo


“I can always look up at the cosmos and marvel, no matter what happens. And when I look up at it, I feel as though my problems are small. I don't know why, but it always makes me feel better.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Boy21


Interesting books

The Pledge
(27.4K)
The Pledge
by Kimberly Derting
The Liars' Club
(50.6K)
The Liars' Club
by Mary Karr
The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God
(8.3K)
The Varieties of Sci...
by Carl Sagan
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
(10.4K)
Dairy Queen
(25.9K)
Dairy Queen
by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Princeps' Fury
(49.6K)
Princeps' Fury
by Jim Butcher

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.