Edna St. Vincent Millay, the world-renowned poet, was born on February 22, 1892, in Rockland, Maine.Millay is best known for her poetry collections: ‘A Few Figs From Thistles’, ‘Second April’, and ‘Renascence And Other Poems’. In addition, Millay also received the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 1923 and the Robert Frost Medal in 1943.Here is a collection of Millay’s most popular quotes taken from her poems ‘First Fig’, ‘Renascence’, and ‘Feast’; letters including one to Arthur Davison.Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes On HopeThis section contains Millay’s best quotes on hope.“Beauty in all things-no, we cannot hope for that; but some place set apart for it.” - ‘Collected Poems’, 1956.“The younger generation forms a country of its own.““It looks like rain, and I hope it will rain cats and dogs and hammers and pitchforks.“Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes From PoemsListed below are the most famous lines from Millay’s best sonnets and poems.“And you never have seenand you never will seeSuch things as the things that swaddled me!”- ‘A Few Figs From Thistles’, 1920.“The heart grows weary after a little Of what it loved for a little while.” - ‘Collected Poems’, 1956.“And what are you that, wanting you,I should be kept awakeAs many nights as there are daysWith weeping for your sake?”- ‘The Philosopher’, ‘Edna St. Vincent Millay: Selected Poems’, 2003.“There is no shelter in you anywhere.” - ‘I Only Know That Every Hour With You’, ‘Early Poems’, 1998.“Feed the grape and beanTo the vintner and monger:I will lie down leanWith my thirst and my hunger.”- ‘Feast’, ‘Selected Poems’, 2003.“God, I can push the grass apartAnd lay my finger on Thy heart!”- ‘Renascence And Other Poems’, 1917.“All right,Go ahead!What’s in a name?I guess I’ll be locked intoAs much as I’m locked out of”- ‘The Prisoner’, ‘A Few Figs From Thistles’, 1920.“All my life,Following Care along the dusty road,Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed.”- ‘Journey’, ‘Second April’, 1921.“Death devours all lovely things;” - 1921.“I have loved badly, loved the great Too soon, withdrawn my words too late; And eaten in an echoing hall Alone and from a chipped plate The words that I withdrew too late.““Never, never may the fruit be plucked from the boughAnd gathered into barrels.He that would eat of love must eat it where it hangs.”- ‘Never May The Fruit Be Plucked’, ‘The Harp-Weaver And Other Poems’, 1922.“The fabric of my faithful loveNo power shall dim or ravelWhilst I stay here - but oh, my dear,If I should ever travel!”- ‘The Edna St. Vincent Millay Collection’, 2013.“I know what my heart is like Since your love died:It is like a hollow ledgeHolding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool,Drying inward from the edge.”- ‘Ebb’, ‘Selected Poems’, 2003.“If I could haveTwo things in one:The peace of the grave,And the light of the sun;”- ‘Moriturus’, 1950.“Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more! Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!” - ‘The Suicide’, ‘The Selected Poetry Of Edna St. Vincent Millay’, 2012.“Along my body, waking while I sleep,Sharp to the kiss, cold to the hand as snow, The scar of this encounter like a sword.”- ‘This Beast That Rends Me’.“This I do, being mad:Gather baubles about me,Sit in a circle of toys, and all the timeDeath beating the door in.”- ‘The Harp-Weaver And Other Poems’, 1922.“Lord, I do fearThou’st made the world too beautiful this year;”- ‘God’s World’, ‘Renascence And Other Poems’, 1917.“The sun that warmed our stooping backs and withered the weeduprooted—We shall not feel it again.We shall die in darkness, and be buried in the rain.”- ‘Justice Denied in Massachusetts’.“Cut if you will, with Sleep’s dull knife,Each day to half its length, my friend,–The years that Time takes off my life,He’ll take from the other end!”- ‘Midnight Oil’, ‘A Few Figs From Thistles’, 1922.“What should I be but a prophet and a liar,Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?”- ‘A Few Figs From Thistles’, 1920.“Hard, hard it is, this anxious autumn,To lift the heavy mind from its dark forebodings;”- ‘Thanksgiving…1950’.“How first you knew me in a book I wrote,How first you loved me for a written line”- ‘The Harp-Weaver And Other Poems’, 1922.“Searching my heart for its true sorrow, This is the thing I find to be: That I am weary of words and people, Sick of the city, wanting the sea;”- ‘Exiled’, ‘Second April’, 1921.“O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!”- ‘Early Poems’, 2013.“But the roaring of the fire,And the warmth of fur,And the boiling of the kettleWere beautiful to her!”- ‘When the Year Grows Old’.“I will come back to you, I swear I will;And you will know me still.I shall be only a little tallerThan when I went.”- ‘The Harp-Weaver And Other Poems’, 1922.“Night falls fast.Today is in the past.”- ‘Not So Far as the Forest’, ‘Huntsman, What Quarry?’, 1939.“Still must the poet as of old,In barren attic bleak and cold,Starve, freeze, and fashion verses toSuch things as flowers and song and you;”- ‘A Few Figs From Thistles’, 1920.“That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood.”- ‘Ode To Silence’.“Beauty never slumbers;All is in her name;But the rose remembersThe dust from which it came.”- ‘Autumn Chant’, ‘Edna St. Vincent Millay: Selected Poems’, 2003.“A ghost in marble of a girl you knewWho would have loved you in a day or two.”- ‘A Few Figs From Thistles’, 1920.“She is happy where she lies With the dust upon her eyes.”- ‘Epitaph’.“The heart can push the sea and landFarther away on either hand;The soul can split the sky in two,And let the face of God shine through.”- ‘Renascence’, 1917.“Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”- ‘Dierge Without Music’.“This book, when I am dead, will beA little faint perfume of me.People who knew me well will say,She really used to think that way.”- ‘Collected Poems’, 1956.“No one but Night, with tears on her dark face,Watches beside me in this windy place.”- Sonnet 76, ‘Fatal Interview’, 1931.“Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!”- ‘Second Fig’, ‘A Few Figs From Thistles’, 1920.“Things that you could not spareAnd live, or so you thought, yet theseAll gone, and you still there,A man no longer what he was,Nor yet the thing he’d planned,”- ‘If Still Your Orchards Bear’, ‘Wine From These Grapes’, 1934.“Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain ageThe child is grown, and puts away childish things.Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.”- ‘Childhood Is The Kingdom Where Nobody Dies’.“I saw and heard, and knew at lastThe How and Why of all things, past,And present, and forevermore.”- ‘Renascence’, ‘Renascence And Other Poems’, 1917.“Pity me that the heart is slow to learnWhat the swift mind beholds at every turn.”- ‘The Harp-Weaver And Other Poems’, 1922.“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!”- ‘First Fig’, 1920.Inspirational Edna St. Vincent Millay Quotes(Read the best quotes from the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.)This section features some quotes from the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet that will definitely inspire you.“Heart, have no pity on this house of bone:Shake it with dancing, break it down with joy.”- ‘Heart, Have No Pity On This House Of Bone’.“Soar, eat ether, see what has never been seen; depart, be lost, But climb.”- ‘Collected Poems’, 1956.“Learn to love blackness while there is yet time, blacknessUnpatterned, blackness without horizons.”- ‘Collected Poems’, 1956.“If I would help the weak, I must be fed In wit and purpose, pour away despair And rinse the cup, eat happiness like bread.”- Sonnet 139, Collected Poems’, 1956.“Youth, have no pity; leave no farthing here For age to invest in compromise and fear.”- [Sonnet 98], ‘Fatal Interview’, 1931.“Time cannot break the bird’s wing from the bird.Bird and wing togetherGo down, one feather.No thing that ever flew,Not the lark, not you,Can die as others do.”- ‘To a Young Poet’, ‘Collected Poems’, 1956.“Life is a quest and love a quarrel.” - ‘The Edna St. Vincent Millay Collection’, 2013.“Life must go on,And the dead be forgotten;Life must go on,Though good men die;Anne, eat your breakfast;Dan, take your medicine;Life must go on;I forget just why.”- ‘Lament’, ‘Second April’, 2009.“Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world - it is thin.“Famous Edna St. Vincent Millay QuotesOnce the famous poet Richard Wilbur said that Vincent Millay penned the best sonnets of the 20th century. Here you will get some of the most famous quotes and sayings.“The breath of dying lilies haunted the twilight air.““Life has no friend.““We think-although of course, now, we very seldom Clearly think- That the other side of War is Peace.”- ‘Collected Poems’, 1956.“I love humanity but I hate people.”- ‘The Edna St. Vincent Millay Collection’, 2013.“There is no God. But it does not matter. Man is enough.““Cruel of heart lay down my song.Your reading eyes have done me wrong.Not for you was the pen bitten,And the mind wrung, and the song written.”- ‘To Those Without Pity’, ‘Edna St. Vincent Millar: Selected Poems’, 1991.“Into each dance must be packed the panic and ecstasy of her last moment of life, for underneath was death.““But if I can’t be sorry, why,I might as well be glad!”- ‘The Penitent’, ‘The Edna St. Vincent Millay Collection’, 2013.“I am all the time talking about you and bragging, to one person or another. I am like the Ancient Mariner, who had a tale in his heart he must unfold to all.““The young are so old, they are born with their fingers crossed.”- ‘Collected Poems’, 1956.“Longing alone is singer to the lute;” - Sonnet 13, ‘Millay: Poems’, 2014.“For the body at bestIs a bundle of aches,Longing for rest;It cries when it wakes”- ‘Moriturus’, 1950.“I am not a tentative person. Whatever I do, I give up my whole self to it.”"[L]ife was not so much “one damn thing after another” as “one damn thing over and over.” - ‘The Poet And Her Book: A Biography Of Edna St. Vincent Millay’, Jean Gould, 1969,“A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public eye with his pants down.““I make bean stalks, I’mA builder, like yourself,”- The Bean-Stalk, 2013.“I do not think there is a woman in whom the roots of passion shoot deeper than in me.““I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;I am not on his pay-roll.”- ‘Conscientious Objector’, Edna St. Vincent Millay: Selected Poems’, 2003.“And her voice is a string of colored beads,Or steps leading into the sea.”- ‘Witch-Wife’, 2013.“I am not afraid of lawyers as I used to be. They are lambs in wolves’ clothing.”- ‘Letters Of Edna St. Vincent Millay’. 1972.“Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.”- ‘Letters’, 1952.“I, being born a woman and distressedBy all the needs and notions of my kind,”- ‘I, Being Born A Woman And Distressed’.“O troubled forms, O early love unfortunate and hard,Time has estranged you into a jewel cold and pure.”- ‘Collected Poems’, 1956.“One should be sure she knows how to be married before rushing into it.““I am not at all in favor of hard work for its own sake; many people who work very hard indeed produce terrible things, and should most certainly not be encouraged.““I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year;”- Sonnet XXVII, ‘Millay: Poems’, 2014.“I will be the gladdest thing Under the sun!I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one.”- ‘The Edna St. Vincent Millay Collection’, 2013.“Need we say it was not love, Now that love is perished?” -Passer Mortuus Est, 1921.“Parrots, tortoises and redwoods live a longer life than men do; Men a longer life than dogs do; Dogs a longer life than love does."“Life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse.” - ‘Ashes of Life’.“But you were something more than young and sweetAnd fair,—and the long year remembers you.”- Sonnet III, ‘Early Poems’, 2013.“What terrible fear causes Man to address the Void as Thou?““The world stands out on either sideNo wider than the heart is wide;”- ‘Renascence’, ‘Renascence And Other Poems’, 1917.“Please don’t think me negligent or rude. I am both, in effect, of course, but please don’t think me either.” - ‘Letters’, 1952.“Not Truth, but Faith it is that keeps the world alive.” - ‘The Edna St. Millay Collection’, 2013.“The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.““Music my rampart, and my only one.”- ‘On Hearing A Symphony Of Beethoven, ‘Collected Poems’, 1956.“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.““Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.”- ‘Spring’, ‘The Edna St. Vincent Millay Collection’, 2013.“Man has never been the same since God died."“I had a little sorrow, Born of a little sin.” - ‘Millay: Poems’, 2014.“Not for the flag Of any land because myself was born there Will I give up my life. But I will love that land where man is free, And that will I defend.” - ‘Selected Poems’, 2003.“Here’s a song was never sung: Growing old is dying young.” - ‘Early Poems’, 2008.“I went to Boston fully expecting to be arrested - arrested by a polizia created by a government that my ancestors rebelled to establish.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay, the world-renowned poet, was born on February 22, 1892, in Rockland, Maine.
