Robert Graves Quotes

Quotes about:

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

  Robert Graves

  Writing, Rewriting, Good Writing

  56 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

  30 Copy quote

• One smile relieves a heart that grieves.

  Robert Graves

  Heart, Grieving

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

  12 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

  20 Copy quote

• To know only one thing well is to have a barbaric mind: civilization implies the graceful relation of all varieties of experience to a central humane system of thought. The present age is peculiarly barbaric: introduce, say, a Hebrew scholar to an ichthyologist or an authority on Danish place names and the pair of them would have no single topic in common but the weather or the war (if there happened to be a war in progress, which is usual in this barbaric age).

  Robert Graves

  War, Knowledge, Civilization

  4 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.

  12 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

  17 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”

  8 Copy quote

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

  Robert Graves

  Genius, Answers, Diagnosis

  10 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

  13 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

  4 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

  6 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.

  18 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".

  17 Copy quote

• Myths are seldom simple, and never irresponsible.

  Robert Graves

  Simple, Myth, Irresponsible

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

  4 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

  76 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

  12 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

  9 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

  4 Copy quote

• Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark a shining space With the grave 's narrowness, though not its peace.

  Robert Graves

  Dark, Space, Shining

  Robert Graves (1997). “Complete Poems”

  6 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.

  20 Copy quote

• One gets to the heart of the matter by a series of experiences in the same pattern, but in different colors.

  Robert Graves

  Heart, Color, Different

  "Soul Rays: Discover the Vibratory Frequency of Your Soul". Book by Candia L Sanders, p. 19, 2013.

  10 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”

  163 Copy quote

• The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

  Robert Graves

  Funny, Hilarious, Laughter

  The Observer, December 06, 1964.

  20 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

  4 Copy quote

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