Motivational Quotes

Poetry and poets

The poetry from the eighteenth century was prose; the prose from the seventeenth century was poetry.

- Hare, David

Best Quotes about Poetry and poets

Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice; if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.

Auden, W. H.

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.

Ginsberg, Allen

It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls) that my poems are competing.

Cummings, E.E. (Edward. E.)

When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

Kennedy, John F.

I have a new method of poetry. All you got to do is look over your notebooks... or lay down on a couch, and think of anything that comes into your head, especially the miseries. Then arrange in lines of two, three or four words each, don't bother about sentences, in sections of two, three or four lines each.

Ginsberg, Allen

Of all great poems, love is the absolute and essential foundation.

Fitzhugh, C.

Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

Sandburg, Carl

Every old poem is sacred.

Horace

A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it.

White, Elwyn Brooks

10.

It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.

Voltaire

11.

I have written some poetry that I don't understand myself.

Sandburg, Carl

12.

Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.

Cocteau, Jean

13.

Each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling.

Eliot, T. S.

14.

The poetic act consists of suddenly seeing that an idea splits up into a number of equal motifs and of grouping them; they rhyme.

Mallarme, Stephane

15.

Poetry is what is lost in translation.

Frost, Robert

16.

Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.

Engle, Paul

17.

I would as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.

Frost, Robert

18.

Poetry is an art, the easiest to dabble in, but the hardest to reach true excellence.

Stedman, Captain J. G.

19.

Poetry must be as new as foam and as old as the rock.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

20.

Between religion's this is and poetry's but suppose this is, there must always be some kind of tension, until the possible and the actual meet at infinity.

Frye, Northrop

21.

Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.

Landor, Walter Savage

22.

No one ever was a great poet, that applied himself much to anything else.

Temple, Sir William

23.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

Frost, Robert

24.

To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.

Colette, Sidonie Gabrielle

25.

Poetry is either something that lives like fire inside you --like music to the musician or Marxism to the Communist --or else it is nothing, an empty formalized bore around which pedants can endlessly drone their notes and explanations.

26.

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Sandburg, Carl

27.

Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.

Hardy, Thomas

28.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It finds the thought and the thought finds the words.

Frost, Robert

29.

Poetry is a mere drug, Sir.

Farquhar, George

30.

The job of the poet is to render the world -- to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.

Doren, Mark Van

31.

The poetry from the eighteenth century was prose; the prose from the seventeenth century was poetry.

Hare, David

32.

Poets wish to profit or to please.

Horace

33.

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.

Aristotle

34.

Poetry is the utterance of deep and heart-felt truth -- the true poet is very near the oracle.

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

35.

A poet can survive anything but a misprint.

Wilde, Oscar

36.

A person born with an instinct for poverty.

Hubbard, Elbert

37.

No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers.

Horace

38.

A mighty good sausage stuffer was spoiled when the man became a poet.

Field, Eugene

39.

You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.

Joubert, Joseph

40.

Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite expressions.

Roux, Joseph

41.

We all write poems. It is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.

Fowles, John

42.

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.

Dickinson, Emily

43.

Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.

Scott, Sir Walter

44.

There is only beauty -- and it has only one perfect expression -- poetry. All the rest is a lie --except for those who live by the body, love, and, that love of the mind, friendship. For me, Poetry takes the place of love, because it is enamored of itself, and because its sensual delight falls back deliciously in my soul.

Mallarme, Stephane

45.

Poetry is indispensable --if I only knew what for.

Cocteau, Jean

46.

We must believe that emotion recollected in tranquillity is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning, tranquillity. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences which to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation. These experiences are not recollected and they finally unite in an atmosphere which is tranquil only in that it is a passive attending upon the event.

Eliot, T. S.

47.

As a poet there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language against corruption. When it is corrupted, people lose faith in what they hear and this leads to violence.

Auden, W. H.

48.

I by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence --this may look like affectation but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.

Byron, Lord

49.

Any healthy man can go without food for two days -- but not without poetry.

Baudelaire, Charles

50.

Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation.

Fitzgerald, Robert