Poetic Quotes

• Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Love, Fear, Philosophy

  Saint Thomas (Aquinas) (1971). “Saint Thomas Aquinas”

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• Always be a poet, even in prose.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Writing, Poetry, Literature

  Charles Baudelaire, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden (2006). “Intimate Journals”, p.108, Courier Corporation

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• Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

  Marianne Moore

  Inspirational, Life, Art

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• A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

  W. H. Auden

  Love, Passion, Language Words

  "Poets at Work" by W. H. Auden, (p. 170), 1948.

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• There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Respect, Soldier, Three

  "Intimate journals: Mon cœur mis à nu". Book by Charles Baudelaire, 1864.

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• A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.

  Wallace Stevens

  Writing, Men, Poetry

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• Learn to reverence night and to put away the vulgar fear of it, for, with the banishment of night from the experience of man, there vanishes as well a religious emotion, a poetic mood, which gives depth to the adventure of humanity.

  Henry Beston

  Religious, Travel, Adventure

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• Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.

  Pablo Casals

  Music, Beautiful, Heart

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.

  James Dickey

  Rain, Poetry, Lightning

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.

  Milan Kundera

  Love, Dream, Memories

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• Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

  Thomas Gray

  Poetry, Breathe, Gray

  'The Progress of Poesy' (1757) l. 110

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• Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Beautiful, Mirrors, Poetry

  Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1840). “A defence of poetry. Essay on the literature, arts, and manners of the Athenians. Preface to the Banquet of Plato. The banquet”, p.33

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• Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

  Don Marquis

  Education, Learning, Knowledge

  Don Marquis, William McCollum (1982). “Selected letters of Don Marquis”, Northwoods Pr

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• You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.

  Joseph Joubert

  Poetry, Great Poetry

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• I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed.

  Umberto Eco

  Reading, Different, Capacity

  Umberto Eco (1994). “The Name of the Rose”, p.545, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Poetry; a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty.

  Matthew Arnold

  Law, Criticism, Fixed

  Matthew Arnold (1973). “English Literature and Irish Politics”, p.163, University of Michigan Press

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

  Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

  Silence, Flattering, Response

  "Paris From My Window". Book by Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, 1944.

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• Each memorable verse of a true poet has two or three times the written content.

  Alfred de Musset

  Memorable, Two, Poetry

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• If the poet has pursued a moral objective, he has diminished his poetic force.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Objectivity, Literature, Moral

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

  Jean Cocteau

  Misunderstood, Tragedy, Worst

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

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• The moment of change is the only poem.

  Adrienne Rich

  Change, Healing, Poetry

  Adrienne Rich (1971). “The Will to Change: Poems 1968-1970”, p.47, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Life, Cities, Atmosphere

  Charles Baudelaire, Jonathan Mayne (1981). “Art in Paris 1845-1862: salons and other exhibitions”

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• I could I trust starve like a gentleman. It's listed as part of the poetic training, you know.

  Ezra Pound

  Trust, Gentleman, Training

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• Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one.

  W. H. Auden

  Responsibility, Aristocracy, Shoulders

  "The Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays" by W. H. Auden, ("American Poetry"), (p. 367), 1962.

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• I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet.

  Bob Dylan

  Thinking, Poet

  Bob Dylan (2007). “Dylan on Dylan: The Essential Interviews”, Hodder & Stoughton

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