Robert Graves Quotes

Quotes about:

• There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.

  Robert Graves

  Writing, Rewriting, Good Writing

  54 Copy quote

• There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

  Robert Graves

  Money, Writing, Poetry

  Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.71, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  29 Copy quote

• Mythology is the study of whatever religious or heroic legends are so foreign to a student's experience that he cannot believe them to be true. . . . Myth has two main functions. The first is to answer the sort of awkward questions that children ask, such as: 'Who made the world? How will it end? Who was the first man? Where do souls go after death?'. . . . The second function of myth is to justify an existing social system and account for traditional rites and customs.

  Robert Graves

  Religious, Children, Believe

  19 Copy quote

• One smile relieves a heart that grieves.

  Robert Graves

  Heart, Grieving

  Robert Graves (2013). “Selected Poems”, p.37, Faber & Faber

  10 Copy quote

• To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.

  Robert Graves

  Poet, Profession, Conditions

  Reply to questionnaire, "The Cost of Letters", in Horizon magazine, September 1946.

  10 Copy quote

• Myths are seldom simple, and never irresponsible.

  Robert Graves

  Simple, Myth, Irresponsible

  Félix Guirand, Robert Graves (1968). “New Larousse encyclopedia of mythology”

  3 Copy quote

• Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight

  Robert Graves

  Hate, Fighting, Men

  Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Dunstan Ward (1999). “Complete poems”, Carcanet Pr

  15 Copy quote

• If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.

  Robert Graves

  Girl, Women, Good Woman

  Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.112, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  10 Copy quote

• The decline of true taste for food is the beginning of a decline in a national culture as a whole. When people have lost their authentic personal taste, they lose their personality and become the instruments of other people's wills.

  Robert Graves

  People, Personality, Culture

  3 Copy quote

• Hate is a fear, and fear is rot That cankers root and fruit alike, Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not, Strike with no madness when you strike.

  Robert Graves

  Hate, Fighting, Roots

  Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Dunstan Ward (1999). “Complete poems”, Carcanet Pr

  4 Copy quote

• What we now call "finance" is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.

  Robert Graves

  Intellectual, Finance, Humans

  Robert Graves (1965). “Mammon and the black goddess”

  11 Copy quote

• The difference between prose logic and poetic thought is simple. The logician uses words as a builder uses bricks, for the unemotional deadness of his academic prose; and is always coining newer, deader words with a natural preference for Greek formations. The poet avoids the entire vocabulary of logic unless for satiric purposes, and treats words as living creatures with a preference for those with long emotional histories dating from mediaeval times. Poetry at its purest is, indeed, a defiance of logic.

  Robert Graves

  Simple, Emotional, Differences

  Robert Graves, Patrick J. Quinn (2000). “Some speculations on literature, history, and religion”, Carcanet Press Ltd.

  16 Copy quote

• Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.

  Robert Graves

  Funny, Marriage, Witty

  Robert Graves (1965). “Mammon and the black goddess”

  7 Copy quote

• Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a start, he has a strong personal rhythm to vary his metrics, he is nothing. Poets mistrust philosophy. They know that once the heads are counted, each owner of a head loses his personal identify and becomes a number in some government scheme: if not as a slave or serf, at least as a party to the device of majority voting, which smothers personal views.

  Robert Graves

  Strong, Philosophy, Party

  Robert Graves, Patrick J. Quinn (2000). “Some speculations on literature, history, and religion”, Carcanet Press Ltd.

  6 Copy quote

• For I now realize that what overcame me that evening was a sudden awareness of the power of intuition, the supra-logic that cuts out all routine processes of thought and leaps straight from problem to answer.

  Robert Graves

  Cutting, Intuition, Routine

  "Poetic Craft and Principle: Lectures and Talks".

  15 Copy quote

• New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.

  Robert Graves

  Spring, New Beginnings, Cutting

  Robert Graves (2015). “The Complete Poems”, p.120, Penguin UK

  11 Copy quote

• Genius not only diagnoses the situation but supplies the answers.

  Robert Graves

  Genius, Answers, Diagnosis

  7 Copy quote

• Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.

  Robert Graves

  English Grammar, Poet, Break

  Lecture at Oxford. Time, December 15, 1961.

  19 Copy quote

• Strawberries that in gardens grow
  Are plump and juicy fine,
  But sweeter far as wise men know
  Spring from the woodland vine.
  No need for bowl or silver spoon,
  Sugar or spice or cream,
  Has the wild berry plucked in June
  Beside the trickling stream.
  One such to melt at the tongue's root,
  Confounding taste with scent,
  Beats a full peck of garden fruit:
  Which points my argument.

  Robert Graves

  Summer, Wise, Spring

  Robert Graves (1920). “Country Sentiment”

  162 Copy quote

• When the immense drugged universe explodes In a cascade of unendurable colour And leaves us gasping naked, This is no more than the ectasy of chaos: Hold fast, with both hands, to that royal love Which alone, as we know certainly, restores Fragmentation into true being. Ecstasy of Chaos

  Robert Graves

  Hands, Naked, Royal

  Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Dunstan Ward (1999). “Complete poems”, Carcanet Pr

  3 Copy quote

• Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision, Blotting out reason.

  Robert Graves

  Love, Vision, Reason

  Robert Graves (2013). “Selected Poems”, p.159, Faber & Faber

  74 Copy quote

• There is one story and one story only.

  Robert Graves

  Stories, Crafts

  Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.73, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  3 Copy quote

• A well-chosen anthology is a complete dispensary of medicine for the more common mental disorders, and may be used as much for prevention as cure.

  Robert Graves

  Science, Medicine, May

  8 Copy quote

• I don't really feel my poems are mine at all. I didn't create them out of nothing. I owe them to my relations with other people.

  Robert Graves

  People, Poetry, Relation

  3 Copy quote

• The gift of independence once granted cannot be lightly taken away again.

  Robert Graves

  Taken, Independence, Granted

  Robert Graves, Richard Francis (2000). “I, Claudius ; and, Claudius the god”, Carcanet Press Ltd.

  4 Copy quote

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