Mark Van Doren — American Poet born on June 13, 1894, died on December 10, 1972

Mark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, Whittaker Chambers, and Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He was literary editor of The Nation, in New York City, and its film critic, 1935 to 1938... (wikipedia)

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery.
To fail to love is not to exist at all.
When it aims to express a love of the world it refuses to conceal the many reasons why the world is hard to love, though we must love it because we have no other, and to fail to love it is not to exist at all.
Bring ideas in and entertain them royally, for one of them may be the king.
Nothing in man is more serious than his sense of humor; it is the sign that he wants all the truth.