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Archibald MacLeish Quotes

Poet

Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, playwright, and government official, born on May 7, 1892, and died on April 20, 1982. His poetry often addressed social and political issues, and he made significant contributions to both poetry and drama.

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All Men World Humans Atheism Ifs Positive Atheism Should Art Mind Poetry America Earth Freedom Journalism Knows Silence Cities Country Death Eternal

Famous Archibald MacLeish Quotes

“If the art of poetry is?the art of making sense of the chaos of human experience, it's not a bad thing to see a lot of chaos.”

Ifs Humans Art Chaos Make Sense Poetry Is Bad Things Human Experience

Author:Archibald MacLeish

“If God is God He is not good, if God is good He is not God; take the even, take the odd.”

Ifs Atheism Positive Atheism Odd

Book:J. B.

Source: J. B.

“The one man who should never attempt an explanation of a poem is its author. If the poem can be improved by it's author's explanations it never should have been published, and if the poem cannot be improved by its author's explanations the explanations are scarcely worth reading.”

Ifs Men Should Has Beens Poetry Reading Should Have Explanation One Man Should Have Been Worth Reading

Author:Archibald MacLeish

“We have no choice but to be guilty. God is unthinkable if we are innocent.”

Ifs Choices Mankind Innocent Guilty Innocence Unthinkable

Book:J. B.

Source: J. B.

“Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.”

Ifs Men Should Two Reason Wisdom Care Sports Football Weight No Reason Conventional Conventional Wisdom

Book:Riders on the Earth: essays and recollections

Source: Riders on the Earth: essays and recollections

“If you commit yourself to the art of poetry, you commit yourself to the task of learning how to see, using words as elements of sight and their sounds as prisms. And to see means to see something worth all the agony of learning how to see.”

Ifs Mean Art Sound Elements Tasks Sight Commit Agony Prisms Using Words

Author:Archibald MacLeish

“Never in all their history have men been able truly to conceive of the world as one: a single sphere, a globe, having the qualities of a globe, a round earth in which all the directions eventually meet, in which there is no center because every point, or none, is center - an equal earth which all men occupy as equals. The airman's earth, if free men make it, will be truly round: a globe in practice, not in theory.”

Ifs Men World Able Earth Space Quality Practice Theory Equal Rounds Spheres Globes Free Man Airmen Round Earth

Author:Archibald MacLeish

“If the poem can be improved by the author's explanations, it never should have been published.”

Ifs Should Writing Has Beens Should Have Explanation Should Have Been

Author:Archibald MacLeish

About the Author

Born: May 7, 1892
Died: April 20, 1982
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 80

Books & Sources

Collected Poems, 1917-1982Related source material

Riders on the Earth: essays and recollectionsRelated source material

J. B.Related source material

The American causeRelated source material

A Time to Speak: The Selected Prose of Archibald MacLeishRelated source material

A continuing journeyRelated source material

In Honor of a Man and an Ideal...: Three Talks on FreedomRelated source material

New & collected poems, 1917-1976Related source material

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