Poet Quotes - Page 2

• One demands two things of a poem. Firstly, it must be a well-made verbal object that does honor to the language in which it is written. Secondly, it must say something significant about a reality common to us all, but perceived from a unique perspective. What the poet says has never been said before, but, once he has said it, his readers recognize its validity for themselves.

  W. H. Auden

  Unique, Reality, Two

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  Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

  William Wordsworth

  Powerful, Poetry, Feelings

  Lyrical Ballads 2nd ed., preface (1802) See Dorothy Parker 24

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

  Carl Sandburg

  Writing, Animal, Air

  Carl Sandburg (2003). “The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg”, p.317, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry is plucking at the heartstrings, and making music with them.

  Dennis Gabor

  Heart, Poetry, Poetic

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• Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

  T. S. Eliot

  Communication, Writing, Poetry

  1929 Dante.

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  Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

  Robert Frost

  Inspirational, Motivational, Happiness

  "The Road Not Taken" l. 16 (1916)

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  But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.

  Robert Frost

  Love, Inspirational, Tattoo

  "Stopping byWoods on a Snowy Evening" l. 13 (1923)

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  There is no remedy for love but to love more.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Life, Break Up

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.12, Yale University Press

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• Poets are mysterious, but a poet when all is said is not much more mysterious than a banker.

  Allen Tate

  Poetry, Bankers, Mysterious

  Allen Tate (1999). “Essays of Four Decades”, Isi Books

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• Never was flattery lost on a poet's ear; a simple race, they waste their toil for the vain tribute of a smile.

  Walter Scott

  Simple, Race, Toil

  'The Lay of the Last Minstrel' (1805) canto 4, ad fin.

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• A prose writer gets tired of writing prose, and wants to be a poet. So he begins every line with a capital letter, and keeps on writing prose.

  Samuel McChord Crothers

  Writing, Tired, Poetry

  Samuel McChord Crothers (1920). “The Dame School of Experience, and Other Papers”

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• Your eyelashes will write on my heart the poem that could never come from the pen of a poet.

  Rumi

  Writing, Heart, Eyelashes

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• 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.

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• A poet must never make a statement simply because it is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.

  W. H. Auden

  Believe, Writing, Poetry

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• He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life.

  George Sand

  Poetry, Noble, Delight

  George Sand (1800). “The Haunted Pool: (La Mare Au Diable).”, p.20

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• 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.

  W. H. Auden

  Art, Money, Writing

  Dyer's Hand (1963) foreword

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• The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.

  Jean Cocteau

  Misunderstood, Tragedy, Poetic

  Le Coq et l'Arlequin (1918) in Le Rappel ... l'ordre (Recall to Order, 1926) p. 20

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• 'Therefore' is a word the poet must not know.

  Andre Gide

  Sarcastic, Poetry, Poetic

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• The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes...

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Steps, Prose

  "Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard" by W. Somerset Maugham, (p. 184), 1930.

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• Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.

  Aristotle

  Love, Life, Positive

  Attributed to Aristotle in Diogenes Laertius "The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers" translated by C. D. Yonge and Henry G. Bohn (p. 188), 1853.

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• Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal but which the reader recognizes as his own.

  Salvatore Quasimodo

  Inspirational, Believe, Poetry

  Speech in New York, 13 May 1960, in New York Times 14 May 1960, p. 47

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• A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Traces alone engender dreams.

  Rene Char

  Dream, Poetry, Should

  "The French-American Review" by Texas Christian University, p. 132, 1976.

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• Poets are all who love, who feel great truths, And tell them; and the truth of truths is love.

  Philip James Bailey

  Love, Truth, Feels

  Philip James Bailey (1857). “Festus: a poem”, p.228

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• I think that were beginning to remember that the first poets didn't come out of a classroom, that poetry began when somebody walked off of a savanna or out of a cave and looked up at the sky with wonder and said, "Ahhh." That was the first poem.

  Lucille Clifton

  Thinking, Sky, Poetry

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• God is the perfect poet.

  Robert Browning

  Godly, Perfect, Poetry

  'Paracelsus' (1835) pt. 2, l. 648

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