For two decades, I’ve maintained a list of quotes I like by poets, writers, and thinkers I find interesting. This post is part of that series. All posts in the series are organized alphabetically. Some poets and writers have their own dedicated pages.

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[We] are being persuaded to spend money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create impressions that won’t last, on people we don’t care about. — Tim Jackson

Poems are proliferated with grassy smells. My friends and family / react like they are going to get something. — Russell Jaffe

It is not always obvious when listening to scientists or talking with poets that their intellectual and emotional worlds overlie. But of course they do. Poetry and science have common roots in observation and they take their cues from the rhythms and patterns of the natural world. Scientists and poets alike must put words to what they see and think and both require rigorous intellectual discipline in order to do so. Scientists and poets share a keen response to the beauty of nature and take delight in the act of discovery or creating. Both must communicate their ideas to others and so appreciate the use of language and a clarity of image. Psychological science, in particular, has in common with poetry a profound interest in human nature and emotion. — Kay Redfield Jamison

There is only one world, the world pressing against you at this minute. — Storm Jameson

So stare and consider and stare and consider, for the water is uniform and there / is no wind, and the boat is so small that even it can no longer be spoken of — Christopher Janke

As the broken vessel is more frightening than the clay it was made from, / and as the clay it was made from is more frightening than the day our lives go on without us. — Matt Jasper

I am often assailed by devastating revelations of the obvious. — Matt Jasper

I think we save by touching, intersecting with, remembering. — Matt Jasper

In pure dark, a new bed is rafted / on the flow of not knowing where we are. — Matt Jasper

One definition of a poem for me is that it is the center of the universe where some degree of context and place and poise is sketched in to set stage with realia and the life that will breathe through it at the intersection of what the moment contains and time. My more heartfelt answer is that a poem spans not knowing and asking to know and having that prayer answered in a slightly different voice than the voice that asked. — Matt Jasper

One moment passes / to another moment the secret— / We are the same. — Matt Jasper

Swallows pass through windows freely / once the panes have gone. — Matt Jasper

The creatures washed up share a limb made of limbs / And an eye of all the eyes that have ever been / Our skin the sand spreading on and on— — Matt Jasper

We gather into song what balms / we need more of. — Matt Jasper

While in a conversation, stop listening / and then begin to listen again. / Fill in the parts in between / with whatever you wish. / A llama, perhaps. — Brett Elizabeth Jenkins

Humanity puts itself in a state of condemnation and then begins this whole game of being OK. — Georgi Y. Johnson

It’s OK to grasp at things for a moment, but we have to be able to put them down. — Georgi Y. Johnson

The mind is a mere receiver, yet early on, it identifies itself as the great cause of creation. — Georgi Y. Johnson

The rain is experience — the naked, sentient experience of living — and the mind has no control over that dimension. — Georgi Y. Johnson

We try to possess the endless scattering of light, we are left dumbfounded by the clenching of our fists. — Georgi Y. Johnson

What is known will be melted, scattered, recycled and reabsorbed. If not now, then in the now of our death. — Georgi Y. Johnson

While we’re manifesting physically, there’s an opportunity to do something, to let something move through us. — Georgi Y. Johnson

All I wanted was a mom without / wounds. — Luke Johnson

O / tree / into the World, / on the secret top / Of / seed / beginning / out of Chaos / song — Ronald Johnson

In order to trash the planet, you have to trash people. — Van Jones

If the word is a sign, it means nothing. But if the word is a symbol, it means everything. — Carl Jung

No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell. ― Carl Jung

Suffering is not an illness; it is the normal counterpole to happiness. — Carl Jung

The reason for evil in the world is that people are not able to tell their stories. ― Carl Jung

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. — Carl Jung