Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason

 --- John Keats, in a letter to his brothers, George and Thomas, on 22 December 1817, as cited by a Wikipedia article (accessed 12/29/2020):

I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason—Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

Keats, John (1899). The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, Cambridge Edition. Houghton, Mifflin and Company. p. 277. ISBN 978-1-146-96754-9.

if way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst

 --- Thomas Hardy, in In Tenebris - II.

The fourth and final stanza

Let him in whose ears the low-voiced Best is killed by the clash of the First,
Who holds that if way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst,
Who feels that delight is a delicate growth cramped by crookedness, custom and fear,
Get him up and be gone as one shaped awry; he disturbs the order here. 

For just this poem, pulled from the compendium given above, see here.

Every gift comes with sacrifice. There is always something demanded.

--- Joy Harjo, in a CSMonitor Q&A, April, 2020

In context:

Q: How would you describe the gift of poetry?

Every gift comes with sacrifice. There is always something demanded. To take care of the gift of poetry demands listening, even when it seems as if there is nothing or no one there. It remembers listening to history and beyond history. It means walking a road of language alone, until you teach someone how to hear you. My mission is to take care of the gifts that I carry, to develop and feed them, and then to share them. We must all take care of our respective gifts, because with them we will find the answers to our problems. With poetry, we can sometimes sing the answers. 

We live by admiration, hope and love

--- William Wordsworth, quoted by Carleton Noyes in the final paragraph of The Gate of Appreciation: Studies in the Relation of Art to Life, 1907 (on gutenberg.org)


From Noyes:

Art is within the range of every man who holds himself open to its appeal. But art is not the final thing. It is a means to an end; its end is personality. There are exalted moments in the experience of us all which we feel to be finer than any art. Then we do not need to turn to painting, music, literature, for our satisfaction. We are living. Art is aid and inspiration, but its fulfillment and end is life.

"We live," says Wordsworth, "by admiration, hope, and love." Admiration is wonder and worship, a sense of the mystery and the beauty of life as we know it now, and thankfulness for it, and joy. Hope is the vision of things to be. And love is the supreme enfolding unity that makes all one. Art is life at its best, but life is the greatest of the arts,--life harmonious, deep in feeling, big in sympathy, the life that is appreciation, responsiveness, and love.

gedigte is eintlik maar net intieme korrespondensie, berigte of briewe aan enkelinge gerig

--- Breyten Breytenbach, in Klein Reis (ex Africa, ex nihil…), Versindaba, January 10th, 2014; datelined Gorée, October/November 2013

Context:

Desperate mense probeer vlug uit die ellende. . . . Ek wens ek kon vir jou sê ek weet hoe hierdie dinge werk – die angs, die aanvaarding, die byna klewerige weerstand wat verhoed dat mense afstand kan neem, die verskriklike kontradiksie (en dis ‘n verskrikking) dat die menselewe tegelyk die opperwaarde is en as van geen belang geag word nie. Dit waartoe ons in staat is, die dun lagie van wete (van self of van die ander)…  Al hoe meer dink ek gedigte is eintlik maar net intieme korrespondensie, berigte of briewe aan enkelinge gerig, en dat dit so gelees en ‘verstaan’ word. Eintlik is dit ook die enigste manier om die ander, die jek, te leer ken. Of deur die kors te breek. Terwyl ‘n narratief of ‘n verhaal tog meer gemeenskaplik is en ʼn huid oor die chaos span.

"Always true to the truth, no matter what, But never scornful of those who have to lie."

--- C.P. Cavafy, lines in Thermopylae, transl. David Ferry, in Poetry Magazine, vol. 1999, no. 4 (January 2012), p. 292

From the poem (second of three stanzas):

Compassionate, available to pity;

Generous if they’re rich, but generous too,

Doing whatever they can, if they are poor;

Always true to the truth, no matter what,

But never scornful of those who have to lie.

 From some other translations:

George Barbanis: "always speaking the truth, yet without hatred for those who lie."

Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard: "always speaking the truth, yet without hating those who lie."

John Cavafy: "speaking the truth despite all hindrances, without ill-will, however, for the liars."

poemhunter.com: "always speaking the truth, but without rancor for those who lie."

"Life is a path that you beat while you walk it"

--- ascribed to Antonio Machado, in Arie de Geus, The Living Company (1997) p. 155.

It seems to be quoting the line "se hace camino al andar" from the poem Caminante, no hay camino, which could also be translated as, "the road is made by walking" or "you make your path as you walk."

Here's the text from the ellyjean blog, with a translation she ascribes to wikipedia:

Caminante, son tus huellas 
el camino y nada más; 
Caminante, no hay camino, 
se hace camino al andar. 
Al andar se hace el camino, 
y al volver la vista atrás 
se ve la senda que nunca 
se ha de volver a pisar. 
Caminante no hay camino 
sino estelas en la mar. 

Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path
that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road–
Only wakes upon the sea.

De Geus responds this way: "To me, this line embodies the most profound lesson on planning and strategy that I have ever learned. When you look back, you see a clear path that brought you here. But you created that path yourself. Ahead, there is only uncharted wilderness."

"Humility, trust, and desire—making faith. For ages humanity has built this experience, but stupid people like me must discover it all again, must touch it for themselves."

--- Anna Kamienska (1920–1986), Polish poet, journal entry from the selection "Industrious Amazement: A Notebook" translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh, in Poetry magazine, March 2011, vol. CLCVIII, no. 6, p. 514

The whole entry:

From the whole liturgy my favorite words are those of the centurion, repeated before communion: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. Speak but the word and my soul shall be healed.” They have the power of poetry. Humility, trust, and desire—making faith. For ages humanity has built this experience, but stupid people like me must discover it all again, must touch it for themselves.

Kamienska stumbled into her faith. Here's another entry from the same collection:

I wasn’t looking for God at all.

I sought my Dead One.

I’ll never cease repeating this, amazed.

The "Dead One" is her husband Jan, who figures constantly in the notebook. For example:

And then a dream took pity on me again. I got up before dawn. When I went back to bed it was dark. I sensed he was beside me, he’d crossed the room. He lay down next to me. We talked entwined. “What’s it like there?” “There’s God and there are birds,” he said. Maybe he meant to say “angels”? God and birds. He left, went through the wall and jumped into a passing truck. He opened his mouth as if he were shouting something.

"Stairwells remember as do doors, but windows do not"

--- Carolyn Forché, lines from her elegy "Travel Papers", published in Poetry magazine, February 2011.

Excerpt:

Such is the piano’s sadness and the rifle’s moonlight.
Stairwells remember as do doors, but windows do not—

do not, upon waking, gaze out a window
if you wish to remember your dream

"The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought"

--- Spanish poet and theater director Federico Garcia Lorca, in a lecture in Buenos Aires titled “Play and Theory of the Duende”, quoted in "What is the hardest word to translate from Spanish?" dictionary.com's the hot word column, February 22, 2011

In context:

In the dictionary, the word is listed as “elf” or “magic.” However, in actual practice, when the word shows up in text, it is rarely in the context of a woodland spirit, although that is where the word’s etymology begins. . . .

In 1933 Spanish poet and theater director Federico Garcia Lorca gave a lecture in Buenos Aires titled “Play and Theory of the Duende” in which he addressed the fiery spirit behind what makes great performance stir the emotions:

“The duende, then, is a power, not a work. It is a struggle, not a thought. I have heard an old maestro of the guitar say, ”The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning this: it is not a question of ability, but of true, living style, of blood, of the most ancient culture, of spontaneous creation … everything that has black sounds in it, has duende.”

"... the world is alive and in dread; it is, as the ancient Greek philosopher Thales claimed, 'full of gods.'"

--- Painter Madeleine Avirov, in the opening sentence of an essay about her experience of poetry, in the January 2011 issue of Poetry.

In context:

When I wake in the night in fear I regain the knowledge that no child lacks: the world is alive and in dread; it is, as the ancient Greek philosopher Thales claimed, “full of gods.” The time is invariably between three and four in the morning.

This belief is attributed to Thales, according to Wikipedia, in Aristotle, De Anima, 411a7, and for other ancient sources see the discussion in Kirk and Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers, 93-7. A Crandall University philosophy department web page portrays it thus: "Thales' view seems to be as follows. As most Greeks, he holds that soul is the cause of all motion, even of inanimate objects. Thus, since there is motion, there must be a soul causing each instance of motion. . . . He then takes a further step and concludes that soul, or the cause of motion, is a god." Not quite as poetic as Avirov's gloss...

"Loving yourself is about as likely as tickling yourself"

---James Richardson, number 8 in his poem, "Vectors 2.3: Fifty Aphorism and Ten-Second Essays", originally published in America Poetry Review, collected in The Best American Poetry 2010, p. 124

A few others on the list that jumped out at me:

4. Spontaneity takes a few rehearsals.

10. No one's so entertaining as the one who thinks you are

13. Office supplies stores are the Cathedrals of Work in General. They forgive, they console, they promise a new start. These supplies have done work like yours a million times. Maybe when you get home it will already be finished.

14. When it gets ahead of itself, the wave breaks.

15. I'd listen to my conscience if I could be sure it was really mine.

17. The lesser of two evils is the one with the less evil friends.

26. What keeps us deceived is the hope that we aren't.

34. Do unto others and an eye for an eye have the same payment plan.

38. The great man's not sure he wants you to criticize even his great rival, let there be no such thing as greatness.

40. My best critic is me, too late.

"Only the present has a true shape in our mind, it’s the only image of truth, and all truth is ugly"

--- Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), poet and writer, from his daybooks “Zibaldone di pensieri”, August 18, 1821, transl. W. S. di Piero, published in Poetry magazine, November 2010, p.134

Full quote from Poetry:

The past in memory, like the future in our imagination, is more beautiful than the present. Why? Because only the present has a true shape in our mind, it’s the only image of truth, and all truth is ugly.

This reminds me of the Buddhist teaching to realize the dissatisfaction of existence by being constantly aware of the present moment.

"No law can impede violation or disobedience of the law"

--- Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), poet and writer, from his daybooks “Zibaldone di pensieri”, August 31, 1820, transl. W. S. di Piero, published in Poetry magazine, November 2010, p.132

"Great thoughts / do not nourish / small thoughts / as parents do children"

--- poet Kay Ryan, in the poem Great Thoughts, from Say Uncle (2000) reprinted in the new collection The Best Of It (2010)
In context:

Great thoughts
do not nourish
small thoughts
as parents do children.

Like the eucalyptus
they make the soil
beneath them barren.

Standing in a
grove of them
is hideous.

"in a golden age everyone goes around complaining about how yellow everything is"

--- Randall Jarrell, quoted by Adam Kirsch in his exchange with Ilya Kaminsky on the occasion of the publication of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, ed. by Kaminsky and Susan Harris; in Various Tongues: An ExchangeIs true translation impossible?,  Poetry, March 2010, p. 467

Quote in context:

Randall Jarrell said that in a golden age everyone goes around complaining about how yellow everything is. I don’t want to make that old mistake, but I wonder if there are some costs to living in a time when books like The Ecco Anthology make so much foreign-language poetry so easily accessible. What strikes me about the many examples you cite, from Wyatt down to Akhmatova, is that they are all cases of poets immersing themselves in a foreign literature and using its resources to renovate their own.

"the simpler her routine, the more complex her thinking can be"

--- Elizabeth Lund in "Poet Kay Ryan: A profile", Christian Science Monitor, August 25, 2004

Quote in context:

"I've tried to live very quietly, so I could be happy," she says, explaining that the simpler her routine, the more complex her thinking can be. Her poems function much the same way, with deep currents underlying a simple-looking surface, as in "Hope" from the collection "Elephant Rocks":

Hope
What's the use
of something
as unstable
and diffuse as hope -
The almost-twin
of making-do,
the isotope
of going on:
what isn't in
the envelope
just before
it isn't:
the always tabled
righting of the present.

"Who serves best doesn’t always understand"

--- Czeslaw Milosz, line from the poem "Love" in the collection Rescue, quoted by A.F. Moritz in the essay "What Man Has Made of Man" in Poetry, November 2009

Quote in context

Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills—
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves.
Who serves best doesn’t always understand.

"Perspective / is another word for stasis"

--- Gottfried Benn, lines from his poem "Static Poems", transl. Michael Hofmann, in Poetry, November 2009 p. 105

Quote in context:

Perspective
is another word for stasis:
you draw lines,
they ramify
like a creeper -
tendrils explode -
and they disburse crows in swarms
in the winter red of early dawns

art never improves, but ... the material of art is never quite the same

--- T S Eliot, in "Tradition and the Individual Talent, suggested by Bret Battey a propos the previous Basho quote

"[The artist] must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same. He must be aware that the mind of Europe - the mind of his own country - a mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mind - is a mind which changes... That this development, refinement perhaps, complication certainly, is not, from the point of view of the artist, any improvement. Perhaps not even an improvement from the point of view of the psychologist or not to the extent which we imagine; perhaps only in the end based upon a complication in economics and machinery. But the different between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past's awareness of itself cannot show."