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Poet Quotes

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Poet Quotes

“Did the gods once mingle with humankind, or is Homer a visionary madman, or, what is worse, a mere poet, a maker-up of beautiful falsities, an elegant liar? I shall grapple with that perplexity, only to emerge as I went in, in a cloud of unknowing, if perhaps a little the wiser.”

Ifs Littles Beautiful Poet Mere Clouds Liars Makers Humankind Wiser Elegant Visionaries Madmen Perplexity Falsity Unknowing

Book:Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad

Source: Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad

“Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition in which the Latin poets whose works have come down to us were not mere imitators of foreign models; and it is therefore the sort of composition in which they have never been excelled.”

Poet Models Mere Satire Latin Composition Imitator

Author:Thomas B. Macaulay

“Say what some poets will, Nature is not so much her own ever-sweet interpreter, as the mere supplier of that cunning alphabet, whereby selecting and combining as he pleases, each man reads his own peculiar lesson according to his own peculiar mind and mood.”

Men Mind Poet Sweet Please Lessons Mere Mood Peculiar Cunning Alphabet Combining Interpreter Suppliers

Book:Pierre; or The Ambiguities

Source: Pierre; or The Ambiguities

“Mere wealth, I am above it, / It is the reputation wide, / The playwright's pomp, the poet's pride / That eagerly I covet.”

Wealth Poet Pride Fame Mere Wide Reputation Playwright

Book:Stones from a glass house: new poems by Phyllis McGinley

Source: Stones from a glass house: new poems by Phyllis McGinley

“That the mere matter of a poem, for instance--its subject, its given incidents or situation; that the mere matter of a picture--the actual circumstances of an event, the actual topography of a landscape--should be nothing without the form, the spirit of the handling, that this form, this mode of handling, should become an end in itself, should penetrate every part of the matter;Mthis is what all art constantly strives after, and achieves in different degrees.”

Should Art Different Ends Matter Form Spirit Poetry Given Situation Achieve Subjects Events Poet Circumstances Degrees Unity Mere Strive Instance Landscape Strife Penetrate Incidents Topography

Author:Walter Pater

“Where philosophy ends, poetry must commence. There should not be a common point of view, a natural manner of thinking which standsin contrast to art and liberal education, or mere living; that is, one should not conceive of a realm of crudeness beyond the boundaries of education. Every conscious link of an organism should not perceive its limits without a feeling for its unity in relation to the whole. For example, philosophy should not only be contrasted to non-philosophy, but also to poetry.”

“They who in folly or mere greed Enslaved religion, markets, laws, Borrow our language now and bid Us to speak up in freedom's cause.”

Law Poetry Speak Language Causes Poet Mere Greed Folly

Book:The Complete Poems of C. Day Lewis

Source: The Complete Poems of C. Day Lewis

“Poets say science takes away from the beauty of stars-mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? ...What is the pattern, or the meaning, or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it.”

Knows Feels Littles Doe Past Artist Night Stars Mystery Poet Mere Patterns Harm Desert Gas Atoms Marvelous

Author:Richard P. Feynman

“Ever since roughly 1890, when snot poets first decided that rhyme was confining and unnecessary, every idiot with a pen fancied hisself a poet. The mere act of rhyming was suddenly regarded as a quaint, mannered, and uncool atavism, consigning doggerelists like me to the trash bin of literary history.”

Firsts Poet Decided Mere Like Me Idiot Pens Unnecessary Rhyme Trash Rhyming Quaint Uncool

Author:Gene Weingarten