Motivational Quotes

Poetry and poets

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

Best Quotes about Poetry and poets

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

Fowles, John

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Sandburg, Carl

A poet can survive anything but a misprint.

Wilde, Oscar

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.

Poets wish to profit or to please.

Horace

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

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

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

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.)

Who among us has not, in moments of ambition, dreamt of the miracle of a form of poetic prose, musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of our souls, the undulating movements of our reveries, and the convulsive movements of our consciences? This obsessive ideal springs above all from frequent contact with enormous cities, from the junction of their innumerable connections.

Baudelaire, Charles

10.

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.

11.

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

Marquis, Don

12.

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

Ackerman, Diane

13.

The essence of poetry is will and passion.

Hazlitt, William

14.

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

Engle, Paul

15.

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

Fitzgerald, Robert

16.

Every old poem is sacred.

Horace

17.

Poetry doesn't belong to those who write it, but to thosewho need it.

18.

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

Frost, Robert

19.

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.

Rilke, Rainer Maria

20.

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

21.

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

Sandburg, Carl

22.

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.

23.

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

Frost, Robert

24.

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

25.

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

Colette, Sidonie Gabrielle

26.

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

Horace

27.

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

Bodenheim, Maxwell

28.

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.

Ashbery, John

29.

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

Cocteau, Jean

30.

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.

31.

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

Temple, Sir William

32.

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.

33.

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

Barrymore, John

34.

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

35.

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

Horace

36.

Poetry is what is lost in translation.

Frost, Robert

37.

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

Hardy, Thomas

38.

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.

39.

Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the sky.

Sandburg, Carl

40.

Painting was called silent poetry and poetry speaking painting.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

41.

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

42.

Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of nature.

Hare, David

43.

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

Fitzhugh, C.

44.

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

45.

Poets and heroes are of the same race, the latter do what the former conceive.

Lamartine, Alphonse De

46.

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

Baudelaire, Charles

47.

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

Stedman, Captain J. G.

48.

Poetry is a mere drug, Sir.

Farquhar, George

49.

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.

50.

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

Flaubert, Gustave