Motivational Quotes

Poetry and poets

The essence of poetry is will and passion.

- Hazlitt, William

Best Quotes about Poetry and poets

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

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

Aristotle

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

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

Joubert, Joseph

She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me written by an Italian poet from the 13th century and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul from me to you.

Dylan, Bob

Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite expressions.

Roux, Joseph

Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.

Marquis, Don

Poetry is the impish attempt to paint the color of the wind.

Bodenheim, Maxwell

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

Hare, David

10.

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

Temple, Sir William

11.

All one's inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.

Flaubert, Gustave

12.

Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others. Then we might even come to see that it is our veneration for what has already been created, however beautiful and valid it may be, that petrifies us.

Artaud, Antonin

13.

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.

14.

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.

15.

Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement... says heaven and earth in one word... speaks of himself and his predicament as though for the first time. It has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time.

Fry, Christopher

16.

I cannot accept the doctrine that in poetry there is a suspension of belief. A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.

Auden, W. H.

17.

A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings.

Renard, Jules

18.

The eye is the notebook of the poet.

Lowell, James Russell

19.

I've read some of your modern free verse and wonder who set it free.

Barrymore, John

20.

Poetry, the genre of purest beauty, was born of a truncated woman: her head severed from her body with a sword, a symbolic penis.

Dworkin, Andrea

21.

Poets are born, not paid.

Mizner, Addison

22.

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.

23.

As to Don Juan, confess that it is the sublime of that there sort of writing; it may be bawdy, but is it not good English? It may be profligate, but is it not life, is it not the thing? Could any man have written it who has not lived in the world? and tooled in a post-chaise? in a hackney coach? in a Gondola? against a wall? in a court carriage? in a vis a vis? on a table? and under it?

Byron, Lord

24.

The courage of the poets is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.

Morley, Christopher

25.

The essence of poetry is will and passion.

Hazlitt, William

26.

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

Stedman, Captain J. G.

27.

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

28.

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

Dickinson, Emily

29.

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.

Ackerman, Diane

30.

Poetry is a mere drug, Sir.

Farquhar, George

31.

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

32.

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

Engle, Paul

33.

The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body.

Bacon, Francis

34.

This poem will never reach its destination. [On Rousseau's Ode To Posterity]

Voltaire

35.

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

Frost, Robert

36.

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

Cocteau, Jean

37.

Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against actuality.

Joyce, James

38.

A poet can survive anything but a misprint.

Wilde, Oscar

39.

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

Hardy, Thomas

40.

Just as a new scientific discovery manifests something that was already latent in the order of nature, and at the same time is logically related to the total structure of the existing science, so the new poem manifests something that was already latent in the order of words.

Frye, Northrop

41.

Homer has taught all other poets the are of telling lies skillfully.

Aristotle

42.

It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.

Auden, W. H.

43.

Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

Marquis, Don

44.

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