To be human is to keep rattling the bars of the cage of existence, hollering, 'What's it for?'
quote by Robert Fulghum
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
VI
The tame bird was in a cage, the free bird was in the forest.
They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate.
The free bird cries, "O my love, let us fly to wood."
The cage bird whispers, "Come hither, let us both live in the
cage."
Says the free bird, "Among bars, where is there room to spread
one's wings?"
"Alas," cries the cage bird, "I should not know where to sit
perched in the sky."
The free bird cries, "My darling, sing the songs of the
woodlands."
The cage bird says, "Sit by my side, I'll teach you the speech of
the learned."
The forest bird cries, "No, ah no! songs can never be taught."
The cage bird says, "Alas for me, I know not the songs of the
woodlands."
Their love is intense with longing, but they never can fly wing
to wing.
Through the bars of the cage they look, and vain is their wish to
know each other.
They flutter their wings in yearning, and sing, "Come closer, my
love!"
The free bird cries, "It cannot be, I fear the closed doors of
the cage."
The cage bird whispers, "Alas, my wings are powerless and dead."
poem by Rabindranath Tagore from The Gardener (1913)
Submitted by Silvia Velea
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The Tame Bird Was In A Cage
THE tame bird was in a cage, the free bird was in the forest.
They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate.
The free bird cries, 'O my love, let us fly to the wood.'
The cage bird whispers, 'Come hither, let us both live in the cage.'
Says the free bird, 'Among bars, where is there room to spread one's wings?'
'Alas,' cries the caged bird, 'I should not know where to sit perched in the sky.'
The free bird cries, 'My darling, sing the songs of the woodlands.'
The cage bird sings, 'Sit by my side, I'll teach you the speech of the learned.'
The forest bird cries, 'No, ah no! songs can never be taught.'
The cage bird says, 'Alas for me, I know not the songs of the woodlands.'
There love is intense with longing, but they never can fly wing to wing.
Through the bars of the cage they look, and vain is their wish to know each other.
They flutter their wings in yearning, and sing, 'Come closer, my love!'
The free bird cries, 'It cannot be, I fear the closed doors of the cage.'
The cage bird whispers, 'Alas, my wings are powerless and dead.'
poem by Rabindranath Tagore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A World Cagged
our world is like a prison
but without iron bars
we are cagged in here
killing all the stars
no walls to obstruct our view
no concrete floors to walk on
no chains to hide you
only a box that cant be seen
we must live in this cage
till we die of old age
when we join the stars
and leave the world of bars
poem by Brandon Brooks
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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For me, the first fact of human existence is the human body. But if you embrace the reality of the human body, you embrace mortality, and that is a very difficult thing for anything to do because the self-conscious mind cannot imagine non-existence. It's impossible to do.
quote by David Cronenberg
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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If It Isn't Her
standing like john wayne
she is full framed
she is center stage
and my imagination is
rattling in its cage
I didn't really notice
when everything else disappeared
but as far as I'm concerned
if it isn't her
it isn't here
she says do I know you
I say well
song performed by by Ani DiFranco from Imperfectly
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Inside A Cage
he is inside a cage
and he does not really want to be inside the cage forever
the cage however is different
it is not locked and no one guards it
he is free to go out and get in anytime
this cage of his choice
he wants to get out of this cage for good
he just can't
he loves to be caged somehow
despite the protest of his reason
he goes out to free himself but only after a while
he gets inside the cage again
in fact he is more inside it and locking himself in it even
he loves what this cage can provide him
his sense of privacy his taste for an enclosure
his genes his sense of wanting to be alone
his beloved prison where he keeps his sins
it is where his ecstasies are hatched and grown
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Invisible Bars
It's not prison bars in front of my face
that take my freedom away.
It's people that want to control the world
that won't let my freedom stay.
It's not a cage that traps me inside
and won't allow me to fly.
It's the powerful ones that always hide
just waiting for me to die.
7 billion bodies now on this earth
and most of them aren't free.
It's a tragic play for most of us
that turned into a comedy.
But then the stage was always set
before we came to this place
to take my freedom away from me
with invisible bars before my face.
poem by Edwina Reizer
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Hermaphrodite
When human can be judged as a man or woman
And seen as a monster, a sinner, the damned one
Can that human still have a right to live as human being
Or should that human think it’s better to erase the existence?
poem by Maria Sudibyo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Simplest: Hello, How Are You? Are You There?
affirm my existence.
are you there?
is there anybody here?
i am human.
i am alone in this universe.
i need a confirmation
that there is another human being in this planet.
hello, hello, helllooooo!
i am human. I am here.
I just arrived here.
is this my home?
do you understand what i am saying?
i am human. I am alone. Unless, i hear from you,
then i exist.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The wild, cruel beast is not behind the bars of the cage. He is in front of it.
quote by Axel Munthe
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Surprise in Japan - Our Rattling Plates
earthquake
teutonic plates rattle
our plates
earthquake
rattling our nerves
the plates on the shelf
softly rattling
to an earthquake
our plates on the shelf
ratting plates
our seismic
detector
rattling plates
oh it is the earthquake
bothering us again
Ring of Fire
every now and then
our plates rattle
rattling plates
a belief in fate keeps
my heart calm
rattling plates
i put my life in
the hands of god
Japan is on one of the most siesmic proned region of the world called ring of fire. In our apartment, every now and then, the plates we stack one over the other on the shelf would rattle. When the earthquake was
strong enough, they would jump off the shelf. It was a surprise to me at first when I heard our plates rattled every now and then especially at night.
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The cruel wild beast is not behind the bars of the cage, he stands in front of it.
Axel Munthe in The Story of San Michele (1929)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Married life is an existence with bars around it.
quote by Al Goldstein
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One Chance
We have one chance.
One chance to get everything right.
We have one chance, one chance.
And if we're lucky we might.
My friends, my habits, my family,
they mean so much to me.
I just don't think that it's right.
I've seen so many ships sail in,
just to head back out again and go off sinking.
I'm just a box in a cage. I'm just a box in a cage.
I'm just a box, just a box in a cage.
I'm just a box, just a box in a cage.
I'm just a box, just a box in a cage.
I'm just a box in a cage.
Didn't mean to laugh, didn't know I had.
Didn't know the better part of what you said
cuz in your head you are not home.
Didn't get the joke. Didn't mean to poke another,
just to save myself
from some something something or another one.
Well walk home.
I'm just a box in a cage. I'm just a box in a cage.
I'm just a box, just a box in a cage.
I'm just a box in a cage.
I'm just a box, just a box in a cage.
I'm just a box, just a box in a cage.
I'm just a box in a cage.
We have one chance,
one chance to get everything right.
My friends, my habits, my family,
they mean so much to me.
I just don't think that it's right.
I've seen so many ships sail in,
just to head back out again and go off sinking.
song performed by by Modest Mouse
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Soul is refugee
How to get free?
How to leave cage and flee?
Until there is change at heart
Who can believe in his divine art?
It is bad human quality
To keep even birds in captivity
God has born us free
With our own eyes to see
To imprison some one is biggest curse
Soul in cage may definitely feel it with remorse
What a foolish man is doing on earth?
When he has to leave this world after death
Even soul in body is refugee
He is at somebody's mercy
You are just a visitor in alien land
Where it is difficult to find friend
Think of it seriously and observe
Some of the aspects if they deserve
Human birth is rarest occasion
We hold it dearly as clear obsession
Think again about your feeling
If some one picks your baby and attempts at killing
None of the acts may please you in any case
Human race is full of problems and always chased
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Cage in the Bird
he was out of the cage
as he was treated as a bird
and he sings
to the sky
but then he had loved the cage so well
and the hands of the master
that feed him
that every morning listens to his song
he had missed sorely so well
and so back into that cage
he flies in
for the master had left it all open
he sings again
concluding that the cage must also
be the home
for freedom
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A caged bird`s plea
In the cage for years,
this cage my home,
a wingless bird
forgotten how to fly
You have cut my wings Oh! man
in the cage let me be,
my folks are away, know not where
do not set me free
poem by Dr Madhavi Grace
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Can't
Please forget the words that I just blurted out,
it wasn't me, it was my strange and creeping doubt,
it keeps rattling my cage.
And there's nothing in this world will keep it down,
and even though I might, even though I try, I can't.
Even though I might, even though I try, I can't.
Soon your things that keep, that keep me underground,
so many words that I, that I can never find.
If you give up on me now,
I'll be gutted like I've never been before.
And even though I might, even though I try, I can't
Even though I might, even though I try, I can't
If you give up on me now,
I'll be gutted like I've never been before.
And even though I might, even though I try, I can't
Even though I might, even though I try, I can't,
even though I might, even though I try, I can't.
Even though I might, even though I try, I can't
song performed by by Radiohead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The ape
With primeval rage
a big ape sneers from a swing
and the jungle ferments in its cage
when it jumps leaving the swing jangling
with dormant hate
it gnaws on its teeth
slams a huge fist at the bars of fate
stares with a angry eye as if it can hardly breathe
shakes its whole body screaming
longing after tropical giant trees
and slams the swing leaving it ringing,
slaps with its hands at some passing bees
hating its cage, raging in calumny
and it longs to escape, to be free
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Society must be organized in such a way that man's social, loving nature is not separated from his social existence, but becomes one with it. If it is true, as I have tried to show, that love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence, then any society which excludes, relatively, the development of love, must in the long run perish of its own contradiction with the basic necessities of human nature.
quote by Erich Fromm
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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