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Poet Quotes

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Poet Quotes

“I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.”

Humans Sound Impossible Poet Equal Tasks Originals Ancient Venture Rhyme Translations Closing Ingenuity Couplets

Book:The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems. Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence

Source: The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems. Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence

“The task of the mind is to produce future, as the poet Paul Valery once put it. A mind is fundamentally an anticipator, an expectation-generator. It mines the present for clues, which it refines with the help of the materials it has saved from the past, turning them into anticipations of the future. And then it acts, rationally, on the basis of those hard-won anticipations.”

Mind Hard Helping Past Produce Mines Poet Materials Expectations Tasks Bases Saved Anticipation Clue Generator

Author:Daniel Dennett

“For suppose that every tool we had could perform its task, either at our bidding or itself perceiving the need, and if-like the statues made by Dædalus or the tripods of Hephæstus, of which the poet says that "self-moved they enter the assembly of the gods" - shuttles in a loom could fly to and fro and a plectrum play a lyre all self-moved, then master-craftsmen would have no need of servants nor masters of slaves.”

Ifs Needs Made Self Play Politics Economy Poet Masters Tools Tasks Moved Slave Servant Liberalism Statues Assembly Craftsman Bidding Tripods

Author:Aristotle

“I do not suppose that anyone not a poet can realize the agony of creating a poem. Every nerve, even every muscle, seems strained to the breaking point. The poem will not be denied; to refuse to write it would be a greater torture. It tears its way out of the brain, splintering and breaking its passage, and leaves that organ in the state of a jelly-fish when the task is done.”

Way Writing States Done Seems Would Be Poetry Realizing Brain Greater Tears Poet Creating Tasks Fishes Refuse Torture Muscles Nerves Passages Denied Organs Agony Jelly Point Break

Author:Amy Lowell

“All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination. Even the richest, most surprising and wild imagination is not as rich, wild and surprising as reality. The task of the poet is to pick singular threads from this dense, colorful fabric.”

Reality Imagination Common Rich Poet Picks Tasks Regard Agreement Surprising Thread Fabric Colorful Dense All The Best Primacy Wild Imagination

Author:Wislawa Szymborska

“Science is a capital or fund perpetually reinvested; it accumulates, rolls up, is carried forward by every new man. Every man of science has all the science before him to go upon, to set himself up in business with. What an enormous sum Darwin availed himself of and reinvested! Not so in literature; to every poet, to every artist, it is still the first day of creation, so far as the essentials of his task are concerned. Literature is not so much a fund to be reinvested as it is a crop to be ever new-grown.”

Men Firsts Art Stills Science Artist Literature Creation Poet Essentials Concerned Tasks Every Man Enormous Fund Crops

Book:The writings of John Burroughs

Source: The writings of John Burroughs

“I think about the poet Rainer Maria Rilke who said that it's the questions that move us, not the answers. As a writer, I believe that it's our task, our responsibility, to hold the mirror up to social injustices that we see and to create a prayer of beauty. The questions serve us in that capacity.”

Thinking Believe Said Moving I Believe Social Prayer Answers Responsibility Poet Capacity Tasks Mirrors Injustice Social Injustice

Author:Terry Tempest Williams

“Revolution is a bitter thing, mixed with filth and blood, not as lovely or perfect as the poets think. It is eminently down to earth, involving many humble, tiresome tasks, not so romantic as the poets think... . So it is easy for all who have romantic dreams about revolution to become disillusioned on closer acquaintance, when a revolution is actually carried out.”

Thinking Dream Earth Easy Perfect Blood Poet Revolution Tasks Humble Lovely Bitter Acquaintance Involving Down To Earth Filth Disillusioned Tiresome

Author:Lu Xun

“To carry language from two dimensions into three is the task of the poets, and the rebels in the 20th Century.”

Two Three Language Century Poet Tasks Dimensions Rebel 20th Century

Author:Terence McKenna

“My focus is on the reader and that the poet's job is not to inspire himself or herself. The poet's job is to inspire some future reader. And so, as a reader you have a task to do in finding those bottles and opening up the messages and experiencing what's in them inside of yourself.”

Jobs Focus Inspire Poet Reader Findings Messages Tasks Opening Bottles Opening Up

Author:Edward Hirsch