Hope is the thing with feathers —
That perches in the soul —
And sings the tune without the words —
And never stops at all —

From Hope Is The Thing With Feathers by Emily Dickinson

my mother sacrificed her dreams
so i could dream

By Rupi Kaur

At any given moment in the middle of a city
there’s a million epiphanies occurring,
in the blurring of the world beyond the curtain

From Let Them Eat Chaos by Kate Tempest

Some days
I am more wolf
than woman
and I am still learning
how to stop apologising
for my wild.

Wolf and Woman by Nikita Gill

Courage is the muscle we work night and day
To get equal rights, to get equal pay

From Courage is a Muscle by Salena Godden

At home, by the kitchen table
I watch my mother’s hands spin the yarn
of meals and housework
of duty and obligation.

From Mother by Nadine Aisha Jassat

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

From I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Now you’re a woman and that’s all
they’ll know, no matter
what you carry or how far
you go, alone, in rationed light.

From Lene Gammelgaard by Helen Mort

I think of lovers as trees, growing to and
from one another, searching for the same light.

From The Unbearable Weight of Staying by Warsan Shire

Every time I travel
I meet myself a little more.

From coordinates by Yrsa Daley-Ward

I am not cruel, just truthful —
The eye of a little god, four cornered.

From Mirror by Sylvia Plath

Each morning I stitch a scowl
over my smile. Let my eyes sass
every person standing between me
& the bus stop.

From Stank by Fatimah Asghar

I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic
and the noon’s new fury
with all your wide futures
promised
I am
woman
and not white.

From A Woman Speaks by Audre Lorde

And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand. 

From To My Wife by Oscar Wilde

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

From Stop All The Clocks by WH Auden

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils

From I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth

I can’t be sorry
enough. I have learned
everything is urgent.

From Nancy Meyers and My Dream of Whiteness by Morgan Parker

And who, when it comes to the crunch, can live
with a heart of gold?

From Mrs Midas by Carol Ann Duffy

The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

From Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And — which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!

From If by Rudyard Kipling

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night

From Howl by Allan Ginsberg

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

From The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

From i carry your heart with me by EE Cummings

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

From Warning by Jenny Joseph

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace. 

From How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.

From homage to my hips by Lucille Clifton

Take every single person who lessened your shine and bury their memory,
without mercy under glow of everything that makes you who you are.

From You Are Hope In A Human Being by Nikita Gill

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

From For the young who want to by Marge Piercy

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run

From To Autumn by John Keats

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate

From Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

I wish I could walk for a day and a night,
And find me at dawn in a desolate place,
With never the rut of a road in sight,
Or the roof of a house, or the eyes of a face.

From Departure by Edna St. Vincent Millay

A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily. 

From A Daughter of Eve by Christina Rossetti

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

From Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated

From If You Forget Me by Pablo Neruda

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

From Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

From Heart, we will forget him! by Emily Dickinson

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!”

From If You Think You are Beaten by Walter D. Wintle

they have no idea what it’s like
to lose home at the risk of
never finding home again

From immigrant by Rupi Kaur

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

From Trees by Joyce Kilmer

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep

From When You are Old by WB Yeats

Scarcely a tear to shed;
Hardly a word to say;
The end of a summer day;
Sweet Love dead.

From An Evening by Gwendolyn Brooks

There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled.
Like, telling someone you love them.
Or giving your money away, all of it.

From Moments by Mary Oliver

Our whisper woke no clocks,
We kissed and I was glad
At everything you did,
Indifferent to those
Who sat with hostile eyes
In pairs on every bed,
Arms round each other’s neck,
Inert and vaguely sad.

From Dear, Though the Night Is Gone by WH Auden

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

From Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

Tree you are,
Moss you are,
You are violets with wind above them.
A child - so high - you are,
And all this is folly to the world. 

From A Girl by Ezra Pound

Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.

From Happiness by Raymond Carver

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls. 

From The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune. 

From A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour. 

From The Children’s Hour by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

From When We Two Parted by George (Lord) Byron