April 30th
A great city is that which has the greatest man or woman,
If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.
— Walt Whitman, Song of the Broad-Axe (1856)

April 29th
Gun aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.
— Dorothy Parker, Resumé (1926)

April 28th
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
— Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers (1921)

April 27th
"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
— Emily Dickinson, No. 254

April 26th
I think I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
— Joyce Kilmer, Trees (1913)

April 25th
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame,
A mechanized automation.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab (1813)

April 24th
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
— Richard Lovelace, To Althea: From Prison (1649)

April 23rd
I would have rid the earth of him
Once, in my pride…
I never knew the worth of him
Until he died.
— Edwin Arlington Robinson, An Old Story

April 22nd
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
— Ogden Nash, A Drink With Something in it (1935)

April 21st
The words I use
Are everyday words and yet are not the same!
You will find no rhymes in my verse, no magic.
There are your very own phrases.
— Paul Claudel, La Muse Qui Est la Grace (1910)

April 20th
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
— T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding (1942)

April 19th
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light!
— Edna St. Vincent Millay, First Fig (1920)

April 18th
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
— William Butler Yeats, The Coming of Wisdom with Time (1910)

April 17th
A child should always say what's true
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at the table;
At least as far as he is able.
— Robert Louis Stevenson, Whole Duty of Children (1885)

April 16th
All your strength is in your union
All your danger is in discord;
Therefore be at peace henceforward,
And as brothers live together.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha (1855)

April 15th
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those who move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense;
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
— Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1711)

April 14th
By viewing Nature, Nature's handmaid Art,
Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow.
— John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis (1667)

April 13th
O World, thou choosest not the better part!
It is not wisdom to be only wise,
And on the inward vision close the eyes,
But it is wisdom to believe the heart.
— George Santayana, O World, Thou Choosest Not (1894)

April 12th
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud --
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dejection: An Ode (1802)

April 11th
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
— John Keats, Endymion (1818)

April 10th
Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit, and the Muse,
Nothing refuse.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Give All to Love

April 9th
A mother's hardest to forgive.
Life is the fruit she longs to hand you,
Ripe on a plate. And while you live,
Relentlessly she understands you.
— Phyllis McGinley, The Adversary

April 8th
The poet is like the prince of the clouds
Who haunts the storm and laughs at lightning.
He's exiled to the ground and its hooting crowds;
His giant wings prevent him from walking.
— Charles Baudelaire, The Albatross

April 7th
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
— Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband (1678)

April 6th
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders.
— Carl Sandburg, Chicago, (1916)

April 5th
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.
— William Shakespeare, Sonnet #30

April 4th
My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.
— Theodore Roethke, Open House (1941)

April 3rd
I am caught like a beast at bay.
Somewhere are people, freedom, light,
But all I hear is the baying of the pack,
There is no way out for me.
— Boris Pasternak, The Nobel Prize (1959)

April 2nd
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
— Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus (1962)

April 1st
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference.
— Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken (1916)