Babette Deutsch Quotes

• Poetry is important. No less than science, it seeks a hold upon reality, and the closeness of its approach is the test of its success.

  Babette Deutsch

  Reality, Poetry, Important

  48 Copy quote

• Poetry is the fiery index to the genius of the age.

  Babette Deutsch

  Age, Genius, Poetry Is

  17 Copy quote

• The poet who speaks out of the deepest instincts of man will be heard. The poet who creates a myth beyond the power of man to realize is gagged at the peril of the group that binds him. He is the true revolutionary: he builds a new world.

  Babette Deutsch

  Men, Speaks Out, Poetry

  10 Copy quote

• How to sustain the miracle
  Of being, that like a muted bell,
  Or like some ocean-breathing shell,
  Quivers, intense and still?

  Babette Deutsch

  Ocean, Breathing, Miracle

  Babette Deutsch (1963). “Collected Poems: 1919-1962”

  9 Copy quote

• Music proposes. Sound disposes.

  Babette Deutsch

  Music, Musician, Sound

  Babette Deutsch (1969). “The collected poems”

  6 Copy quote

• There is no end to grief. Nor no end to poetry.

  Babette Deutsch

  Grief, Poetry, Ends

  Babette Deutsch (1969). “The collected poems”

  4 Copy quote

• The poet, like the lover, is a person unable to reconcile what he knows with what he feels. His peculiarity is that he is under a certain compulsion to do so.

  Babette Deutsch

  Lovers, Poet, Certain

  4 Copy quote

• History
  Coming too close
  Is monstrous, like a doll
  That is alive and bigger than the child
  Who tries to hold it.

  Babette Deutsch

  Children, History, Trying

  Babette Deutsch (1963). “Collected Poems: 1919-1962”

  6 Copy quote

• The difference between Pound and Whitman is not between the democrat who in deep distress could look hopefully toward the future and the fascist madly in love with the past. It is that between the woodsman and the woodcarver. It is that between the mystic harking back to his vision and the artist whose first allegiance is to his craft, and so to the reality it presents.

  Babette Deutsch

  Artist, Past, Reality

  Babette Deutsch (1963). “Poetry in our time: a critical survey of poetry in the English-speaking world, 1900 to 1960”, Columbia University Press

  8 Copy quote

• Who, except the poets, reads poetry?

  Babette Deutsch

  Poetry, Poet

  4 Copy quote

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