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Poet Quotes

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Poet Quotes

“The more the merely human part of the poet remains a mystery, the more willing is the reverence given to his divine mission.”

Humans Given Mystery Divine Willing Poet Remains Missions Reverence

Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

“Many brave men lived before Agamemnon; but, all unwept and unknown, are lost in the distant night, since they are without a divine poet (to chronicle their deeds).”

Men Night Lost Divine Poet Bravery Brave Deeds Brave Man Chronicles Forte Agamemnon

Author:Horace

“The true historical genius, to our thinking, is that which can see the nobler meaning of events that are near him, as the true poet is he who detects the divine in the casual; and we somewhat suspect the depth of his insight into the past who cannot recognize the godlike of to-day under that disguise in which it always visits us.”

Thinking Past Events Divine Poet Genius Historical Depth Insight Suspects Disguise Casual Godlike

Book:My Study Windows

Source: My Study Windows

“the true art of the gods is the comic. The comic is a condescension of the divine to the world of man; it is the sublime vision, which cannot be studied, but must ever be celestially granted. In the comic the gods see their own being reflected as in a mirror, and while the tragic poet is bound by strict laws, they will allow the comic artist a freedom as unlimited as their own.”

Men World Art Law Artist Vision Comedy Divine Poet Mirrors Bounds Granted Comic Tragic Strict Sublime Unlimited Condescension Strict Laws

Book:Winter's Tales

Source: Winter's Tales

“other artists - poets, painters, sculptors, musicians - produce something which lives after them and enshrines their memories in positive evidences of their divine mission; but we, - we strut and fret our hour upon the stage, and then the curtain falls and all is darkness and silence.”

Artist Fall Actors Hours Memories Silence Darkness Stage Produce Divine Poet Musician Evidence Theater Missions Painter Curtains Sculptors

Author:Charlotte Saunders Cushman

“From not the gravest of Divines, Accept for once some serious Lines.”

Poetry Lines Accepting Divine Serious Poet

Book:The Works of Jonathan Swift: Accurately Revised in Twelve Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates. With Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes, Historical and Explanatory

Source: The Works of Jonathan Swift: Accurately Revised in Twelve Volumes, Adorned with Copper-plates. With Some Account of the Author's Life and Notes, Historical and Explanatory

“The plot! The plot! What kind of plot could a poet possibly provide that is not surpassed by the thinking, feeling reader? Form alone is divine.”

Thinking Kind Feelings Form Divine Poet Reader Plot

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“Happy indeed the poet of whom, like Orpheus, nothing is known but an immortal name! Happy next, perhaps, the poet of whom, like Homer, nothing is known but the immortal works. The more the merely human part of the poet remains a mystery, the more willing is the reverence given to his divine mission.”

Humans Next Names Given Known Mystery Divine Willing Poet Fame Remains Missions Immortal Reverence Orpheus

Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

“We have more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry. It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one. There is, indeed, a certain low and moderate sort of poetry, that a man may well enough judge by certain rules of art; but the true, supreme, and divine poesy is equally above all rules and reason. And whoever discerns the beauty of it with the most assured and most steady sight sees no more than the quick reflection of a flash of lightning.”

Source: Works, Comprising His Essays, Letters, and Journey Through Germany and Italy: With Notes from All the Commentators, Biographical and Bibliographical Notices &c., &c

“There are ancient and modern poems which breathe, in their entirety and in every detail, the divine breath of irony. In such poemsthere lives a real transcendental buffoonery. Their interior is permeated by the mood which surveys everything and rises infinitely above everything limited, even above the poet's own art, virtue, and genius; and their exterior form by the histrionic style of an ordinary good Italian buffo.”

“Melancholy men of all others are most witty, which causeth many times a divine ravishment, and a kinde of Enthusiasmus, which stirreth them up to bee excellent Philosophers, Poets, Prophets, etc.”

Men Divine Poet Philosopher Witty Excellent Prophet Etc Melancholy Bees

Author:Aristotle

“I would not recommend poetry as a career. In the first place, it's impossible in this time and place - in this culture - to make poetry a career. The writing of poetry is one thing. It's an obsession, the scratching of a divine itch, and has nothing to do with money. You can, however, make a career out of being a poet by teaching, traveling around, and giving lectures. It's a thin living at best.”

Giving Writing Firsts Culture Careers Impossible One Thing Teaching Divine Poet Obsession Poetry Is Lectures

Author:Maxine Kumin

“If the time should ever come when what is now called Science, thus famliarised to men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the Poet will lend his divine spirit to the aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man.”

Ifs Men Should Form Spirit Blood Divine Ready Poet Dear Aids Flesh Genuine Welcome Household Flesh And Blood Inmates Transfiguration

Author:William Wordsworth

“I think there's probably always been visions and voices, and these were variously ascribed to the divine or demonic or the muses. I think many poets still feel they depend on an inner voice, or a voice which tells them what to do.”

Thinking Feels Stills Voice Vision Divine Poet Depends Muse Inner Voice Demonic

Author:Oliver Sacks

“But you, divine poet, you sang on till the end as the swarm of rejected maenads attacked you, shrieking, you overpowered their noise with harmony, and from pure destruction arose your transfigured song.”

Ends Song Divine Poet Pure Destruction Harmony Noise Rejected Swarms Till The End Maenads

Book:The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition

Source: The Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus: A Dual Language Edition

“Sacred scripture is of course the basic authority for everything; yet I sometimes run across ancient sayings or pagan writings - even the poets - so purely and reverently and admirably expressed that I can't help believing the author's hearts were moved by some divine power. And perhaps the spirit of Christ is more widespread than we understand, and the company of the saints includes many not on our calendar.”

Source: The Colloquies of Erasmus

“Many are the noble words in which poets speak concerning the actions of men; but like yourself when speaking about Homer, they do not speak of them by any rules of art: they are simply inspired to utter that to which the Muse impels them, and that only; and when inspired, one of them will make dithyrambs, another hymns of praise, another choral strains, another epic or iambic verses- and he who is good at one is not good any other kind of verse: for not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine.”

Men Kind Doe Art Action Speak Divine Poet Like You Praise Inspired Noble Verses Muse Epic Strain Hymns Like Yourself

Book:Plato: The Complete Works including 31 Books (illustrated)

Source: Plato: The Complete Works including 31 Books (illustrated)

“For not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine. Had he learned by rules of art, he would have known how to speak not of one theme only, but of all; and therefore God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us.”

Knows Mind May Doe Art States Use Order Speak Known Divine Poet Holy Ministers Prophet Theme Speakers Priceless Unconsciousness Holy Prophet

Author:Plato

“Dante Alighieri was not only a Christian poet or a priest, he was a man. He was a real poet. We can understand that the goal of Divine Comedy is beauty. You don't need also to understand Italian or to know Italian, because when Dante's writing, when we recite Dante out loud, it explodes a cosmos of illumination like to recite music, a symphony.”

Men Writing Real Christian Goal Comedy Divine Poet Italian

Author:Roberto Benigni

“The Greeks, those originators of the intellectual life, fixed for us the idea of the poet. He was a divine man; more sacred than the priest, who was at best an intermediary between men and the gods, but in the poet the god was present and spoke.”

Men Ideas Divine Poet Intellectual Sacred Greek Fixed Spokes Priests Origin Of Life Intellectual Life

Book:The Torch, and Other Lectures and Addresses

Source: The Torch, and Other Lectures and Addresses