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”

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Marianne Moore

  Inspirational, Life, Art

  67 Copy quote

• 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.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Wallace Stevens

  Writing, Men, Poetry

  15 Copy quote

• 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

  84 Copy quote

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

  Pablo Casals

  Music, Beautiful, Heart

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

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• 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.

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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”

  21 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

  Carl Sandburg

  Poetry, Literature, Synthesis

  Atlantic Monthly Mar. 1923 "Poetry Considered"

  94 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.

  Robert Frost

  Love, Life, Motivational

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Joseph Joubert

  Poetry, Great Poetry

  16 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Gray

  Poetry, Breathe, Gray

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

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.

  Muriel Rukeyser

  Poetry, Breathe

  Muriel Rukeyser (1994). “Out of Silence: Selected Poems”, p.1, Northwestern University Press

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Humor, Poetic License, Perfection

  Thomas Carlyle (1825). “Carlyle's Works ...”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• As to the pure mind all things are pure, so to the poetic mind all things are poetical.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Mind, Purity, All Things

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1866). “Kavanagh. Driftwood”, p.305

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.

  Novalis

  Inspiring, Healing, Poetry

  "Quote, Unquote". Book by Jonathan Williams, p. 136, 1989.

  55 Copy quote

  Show source