Robert Bly Quotes

Quotes about:

• To be wild is not to be crazy or psychotic. True wildness is a love of nature, a delight in silence, a voice free to say spontaneous things, and an exuberant curiosity in the face of the unknown.

  Robert Bly

  Nature, Crazy, Voice

  116 Copy quote

• ... where a man's wound is, that is where his genius will be.

  Robert Bly

  Men, Genius, Wounds

  Robert Bly (2015). “Iron John: A Book about Men”, p.30, Da Capo Press

  75 Copy quote

• Every part of you that you do not love will regress and become hostile towards you.

  Robert Bly

  Hostile

  53 Copy quote

• We did not come to remain whole.
  We came to lose our leaves like the trees,
  Trees that start again.

  Robert Bly

  Being Alone, Tree, Whole

  Robert Bly (2009). “Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems”, p.17, Harper Collins

  61 Copy quote

• The body weeps the tears the eyes never shed.

  Robert Bly

  Eye, Tears, Body

  38 Copy quote

• We make the path by walking.

  Robert Bly

  Path, Walking

  Robert Bly (2015). “Iron John: A Book about Men”, p.8, Da Capo Press

  42 Copy quote

• The inner boy in a messed-up family may keep on being shamed, invaded, disappointed, and paralyzed for years and years. "I am a victim," he says, over and over; and he is. But that very identification with victimhood keeps the soul house open and available for still more invasions. Most American men today do not have enough awakened or living warriors inside to defend their soul houses. And most people, men or women, do not know what genuine outward or inward warriors would look like, or feel like.

  Robert Bly

  Warrior, Boys, Men

  Robert Bly (2004). “Iron John: A Book about Men”, p.149, Da Capo Press

  77 Copy quote

• As the saying goes, you might as well be yourself; everyone else is taken.

  Robert Bly

  Being Yourself, Taken, Might

  14 Copy quote

• It’s all right if you grow your wings on the way down.

  Robert Bly

  Wings, Way, Grows

  Robert Bly (2013). “Stealing Sugar from the Castle: Selected and New Poems, 1950-2013: Selected Poems, 1950–2011”, p.287, W. W. Norton & Company

  40 Copy quote

• We spend our life until we’re twenty deciding what parts of ourself to put into the bag, and we spend the rest of our lives trying to get them out again.

  Robert Bly

  Trying, Twenties, Bags

  37 Copy quote

• My feeling is that poetry is also a healing process, and then when a person tries to write poetry with depth or beauty, he will find himself guided along paths which will heal him, and this is more important, actually, than any of the poetry he writes.

  Robert Bly

  Healing, Writing, Feelings

  54 Copy quote

• The door to the soul is unlocked; you do not need to please the doorkeeper, the door in front of you is yours, intended for you, and the doorkeeper obeys when spoken to.

  Robert Bly

  Doors, Soul, Needs

  59 Copy quote

• We are living at an important and fruitful moment now, for it is clear to men that the images of adult manhood given by the popular culture are worn out; a man can no longer depend on them. By the time a man is thirty-five he knows that the images of the right man, the tough man, the true man which he received in high school do not work in life.

  Robert Bly

  Life, School, Men

  Robert Bly (2015). “Iron John: A Book about Men”, p.7, Da Capo Press

  46 Copy quote

• As I've gotten older, I find I am able to be nourished more by sorrow and to distinguish it from depression.

  Robert Bly

  Sad, Sorrow, Able

  33 Copy quote

• The candle is not lit To give light, but to testify to the night.

  Robert Bly

  Night, Light, Giving

  9 Copy quote

• Every part of our personality that we do not love will become hostile to us.

  Robert Bly

  Personality, Mindfulness, Hostile

  36 Copy quote

• Be careful how quickly you give away your fire.

  Robert Bly

  Fire, Giving, Be Careful

  14 Copy quote

• Don't go outside your house to see flowers. My friend, don't bother with that excursion. Inside your body there are flowers. One flower has a thousand petals. That will do for a place to sit. Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty inside the body and out of it, before gardens and after gardens.

  Robert Bly

  Beauty, Flower, Garden

  Robert Bly (2011). “Kabir: Ecstatic Poems”, p.86, Beacon Press

  39 Copy quote

• I am proud only of those days that pass in undivided tenderness.

  Robert Bly

  Relaxation, Proud, Tenderness

  Robert Bly (1986). “Selected poems”, Harper Perennial

  26 Copy quote

• What does it mean when a man falls in love with a radiant face across the room? It may mean that he has some soul work to do. His soul is the issue. Instead of pursuing the woman and trying to get her alone, away from her husband, he needs to go alone himself, perhaps to a mountain cabin, for three months, write poetry, canoe down a river, and dream. That would save some women a lot of trouble.

  Robert Bly

  Dream, Falling In Love, Husband

  39 Copy quote

• There are a lot of men who are healthier at age fifty then they have ever been before, because a lot of their fear is gone.

  Robert Bly

  Fear, Health, Men

  40 Copy quote

• The distance between the adolescent and the true adult is about five thousand miles, but the distance between the adult and the elder is almost as large.

  Robert Bly

  Distance, Adults, Miles

  Source: www.utne.com

  5 Copy quote

• The deeper question... is not whether ancient religious forms can reform... but whether new forms of nature-related spirituality might emerge.

  Robert Bly

  Religious, Religion, Reform

  8 Copy quote

• Male initiation does not move toward machoism; on the contrary, it moves toward achieving a cultivated heart before we die.

  Robert Bly

  Moving, Heart, Males

  8 Copy quote

• If you want the truth, I will tell you the truth: Friend, listen: the God whom I love is inside.

  Robert Bly

  Mom, Love Is, Want

  Robert Bly (2011). “Kabir: Ecstatic Poems”, p.77, Beacon Press

  7 Copy quote

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