Poetry Quotes - Page 15

• A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.

  Salman Rushdie

  Courage, Sleep, Names

  The Satanic Verses pt. 2 (1988)

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• In the sea there are countless treasures,
  But if you desire safety, it is on the shore.

  Saadi

  Wisdom, Islamic, Sea

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• I don't believe any of you have ever read Paradise Lost, and you don't want to. That's something that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic ... something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

  Mark Twain

  Trust, Believe, Book

  1900 Speech on'The Disappearance of Literature' at the Nineteenth Century Club, 20 Nov. Quoted in Albert Bigelow Paine (ed) MarkTwain's Speeches (1910).

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• I think the poet is the last person who is still speaking the truth when no one else dares to. I think the poet is the first person to begin the shaping and visioning of the new forms and the new consciousness when no one else has begun to sense it; I think these are two of the most essential human functions.

  Diane di Prima

  Truth, Thinking, Two

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• Abstract art was the quivalent of poetic expression; I didn’t need to use words,but colors and lines. I didn’t need to belong to a language-oriented culture but to an open form of expression.

  Etel Adnan

  Art, Expression, Color

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• Art is the heart's explosion on the world. Music. Dance. Poetry. Art on cars, on walls, on our skins. There is probably no more powerful force for change in this uncertain and crisis-ridden world than young people and their art. It is the consciousness of the world breaking away from the strangle grip of an archaic social order.

  Luis J. Rodriguez

  Change, Music, Dance

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• I have a high art, I hurt with cruelty those who would damage me.

  Archilochus

  Art, Hurt, Warrior

  "Quotations for Martial Artists : Hundreds of Inspirational Quotes to Motivate and Enlighten the Modern Warrior". Book edited by John D. Moore, 2003.

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• Silence is a sounding thing, To one who listens hungrily

  Gwendolyn B. Bennett

  Music, Silence, African American

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• If you deconstruct Greece, you will in the end see an olive tree, a grapevine, and a boat remain. That is, with as much, you reconstruct her.

  Odysseas Elytis

  Country, Tree, Olives

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• Let no-one say the past is dead, the past is all about us and within.

  Oodgeroo Noonuccal

  Past, History, Aboriginal

  Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Kath Walker (1992). “The dawn is at hand: selected poems”, Marion Boyars Publishers

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• Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life. It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that.

  Mary Oliver

  Way, Empty, Baskets

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• Poetry is the overflowing of the Soul.

  Henry Theodore Tuckerman

  Soul, Poetry Is

  Thomas Budd Shaw, Henry Theodore Tuckerman (1853). “Outlines of English Literature”, p.468

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• Do not go gentle into that good night.

  Dylan Thomas

  Tattoo, Good Night, Goodnight

  "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" l. 16 (1952)

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• Poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is.

  James Branch Cabell

  Men, Uprising, Rebellion

  1919 Jurgen.

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• There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.

  John Cage

  Poetic, Realizing

  John Cage, Daniel Charles (1981). “For the birds”, Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd

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• A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.

  E. M. Forster

  Together, Literature, Information

  Two Cheers for Democracy "Anonymity: An Enquiry" (1951)

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• I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.

  Carl Sandburg

  Literature, Poetry Is, Written

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• Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

  Carl Sandburg

  Literature, Synthesis, Biscuits

  Atlantic Monthly Mar. 1923 "Poetry Considered"

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• If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

  Khalil Gibran

  Love, Motivational, Family

  Prophet (1923) "On Work"

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• The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

  William Shakespeare

  Witty, Atheist, Memorable

  'The Merchant of Venice' (1596-8) act 1, sc. 3, l. [99]

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• Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.

  Rabindranath Tagore

  Inspirational, Life, Encouraging

  "Stray Birds". Book by Rabindranath Tagore, 1916.

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• War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other.

  Paul Valery

  War, People, Killing Each Other

  Bizarre, issues 24-31, (p. 102), 1962.

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• It is a great feeling to know that from a window I can go to books to cans of beer to past loves. And from these gather enough dream to sneak out a back door.

  Gregory Corso

  Dream, Book, Beer

  Gregory Corso (1976). “Gasoline & Vestal Lady on Brattle: Pocket Poets Number 8”, p.105, City Lights Books

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  Don’t you love the Oxford Dictionary? When I first read it, I thought it was a really really long poem about everything.

  David Bowie

  Book, Reading, Oxford

  "FMO’s Final Interview With David Bowie". Interview with Johnnny, fmobserver.com. March 4, 2016.

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• I see little hope for democracy as an effective form of government, but I admire the poetry of how it makes its victims complicit in their own destruction.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Sarcastic, Hope, Sarcasm

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