Home / Authors / Robert Fitzgerald

Robert Fitzgerald Quotes

Poet

Robert Fitzgerald was an American poet, born on October 12, 1910, and died on January 16, 1985. His poetry is known for its unique style and profound insight into American culture.

Filter quotes by topic

All Language Way Kind Thinking Courses Different Facts Heard Latin Poet

Famous Robert Fitzgerald Quotes

“Men's lives are short . The hard man and his cruelties will be Cursed behind his back and mocked in death. But one whose heart and ways are kind - of him strangers will bear report to the whole wide world, and distant men will praise him. - Penelope in Robert Fitzgerald trans. THE ODYSSEY (364)”

Success Kindness Respect Legacy Immortality Meaning Of Life Remembrance Penelope

Book:The odyssey

Source: The odyssey

“Electronic brains may help us to use our heads but will not excuse us from that duty, and as to our hearts-cardiograms cannot diagnose what may be most ill about them, or confirm what may be best. The faithful woman and the versatile brave man, the wakeful intelligence open to inspiration or grace-these are still exemplary for our kind, as they always were and always will be.”

Men Heart Kind May Stills Helping Use Inspiration Brain Grace Duty Brave Ill Excuse Faithful Brave Man Versatile Exemplary

Book:The Third Kind of Knowledge: Memoirs & Selected Writings

Source: The Third Kind of Knowledge: Memoirs & Selected Writings

“Poetry is at least an elegance and at most a revelation.”

Poetry Revelations Poetry Is Elegance

Book:The Third Kind of Knowledge: Memoirs & Selected Writings

Source: The Third Kind of Knowledge: Memoirs & Selected Writings

“Is encouragement what the poet needs? Open question. Maybe he needs discouragement. In fact, quite a few of them need more discouragement, the most discouragement possible.”

Needs Facts Poet Encouragement Discouragement

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story”

Stories Muse

Book:The Odyssey: A Play

Source: The Odyssey: A Play

“I think it was lucky that during most of the work on the Odyssey I lived on Homer's sea in houses that were, in one case, shaken by the impact of the Mediterranean winter storms on the rocks below.”

Thinking House Cases Sea Rocks Lucky Impact Winter Storm Odyssey Mediterranean Sea

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“I think there are perhaps two ways in which one can begin.”

Thinking Way Two Two Ways

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“Homer's whole language, the language in which he lived, the language that he breathed, because he never saw it, or certainly those who formed his tradition never saw it, in characters on the pages. It was all on the tongue and in the ear.”

Whole Character Language Saws Pages Tradition Ears Tongue

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“I think that everyone who took part has always been grateful for it.”

Thinking Grateful

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“In a way you can feel that the poet actually is looking over your shoulder, and you say to yourself, now, how would this go for him? Would this do or not?”

Way Feels Poet Shoulders Over You Getting Over You

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“Now, the language that had grown up and formed itself on those principles is what one is dealing with, and the problem is to bring a work of art in that medium into another medium formed on different principles and heard and understood in a different way.”

Way Art Different Problem Language Principles Heard Understood Mediums Different Ways Works Of Art

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“In fact, eloquence in English will inevitably make use of the Latin element in our vocabulary.”

Facts Use Elements Latin Vocabulary Eloquence

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“One should indeed read Pope with his notes available, in the Twickenham edition possibly, to see what a vast amount he did understand about Homer.”

Should Amount Notes Available Pope

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“The invention of Bob Dylan with his guitar belongs in its way to the same kind of tradition of something meant to be heard, as the songs of Homer.”

Way Kind Song Heard Tradition Guitar Invention Meant To Be Bob Dylan

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“Of course the other and more serious way in which it all happens is that one finds in poems and language some quality one appropriates for oneself and wishes to reproduce.”

Way Happens Courses Language Wish Quality Serious Oneself

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“Yes, living voices in a living language, so it seemed to us.”

Language Voice

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“The question is how to bring a work of imagination out of one language that was just as taken-for-granted by the persons who used it as our language is by ourselves. Nothing strange about it.”

Persons Used Language Imagination Taken Strange Granted Taken For Granted Taking Things For Granted

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“Words began to appear in English and to make some kind of equivalent. For what satisfaction it is hard to say, except that something seems unusually piercing, living, handsome, in another language, and since English is yours, you wish it to be there too.”

Kind Hard Seems Language Wish Beauty Satisfaction Handsome Piercings

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“There must of course be a relationship between translating and making poems of your own, but what it is I just don't know.”

Knows Courses Translate

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“Well, with the French language, which I understood and spoke, however imperfectly, and read in great quantities, at certain times, the matter I suppose was slightly different from either Latin or Greek.”

Wells Different Matter Certain Language Understood Greek Spokes Latin Quantity French Language

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“What the translator - myself in particular - does is not comparable to what the Homeric performer was doing.”

Doe Particular Performers Translators

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

“Yes, and there were changes of light on landscapes and changes of direction of the wind and the force of the wind and weather. That whole scene is too important in Homer to neglect.”

Important Whole Light Force Wind Scene Weather Landscape Neglect

Author:Robert Fitzgerald

About the Author

Born: October 12, 1910
Died: January 16, 1985
Known for: Poet
Quotes: 22

Books & Sources

The Third Kind of Knowledge: Memoirs & Selected WritingsRelated source material

The Odyssey: A PlayRelated source material

The odysseyRelated source material

Similar Authors

Bernard PivotBrowse related quotes
David CrystalBrowse related quotes
Edward SapirBrowse related quotes
Charlton LairdBrowse related quotes
Mido HamadaBrowse related quotes
Raj ThackerayBrowse related quotes
Michael ErardBrowse related quotes
Ferdinand de SaussureBrowse related quotes
Paul CelanBrowse related quotes
Benjamin Lee WhorfBrowse related quotes