Best poet & war Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

Source: Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems

“At present, I am a poet trying to be a soldier. To tell the truth, I am not interested in writing nowadays, except in so far as writing is the expression of something beautiful ... The only sort of book I care to write about the war is the sort people will read after the war is over - a century after it is over.”

People Writing Trying Book War Care Beautiful Century Poet Expression Soldier Telling The Truth Not Interested I Care Something Beautiful

Book:Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems

Source: Joyce Kilmer: Memoir and poems

“It is not my purpose as a poet to condemn war (or to be exact, modern warfare). I only wish to present the universal aspects of a particular event.”

War Purpose Wish Modern Events Particular Poet Aspect Universal Warfare Modern Warfare

Author:Herbert Read

“I don't doubt that at the dawn of martial arts, the main goal was to beat up one's opponents in the most effective way possible. But then, indirectly, the alchemy of martial arts began to strike some chords deep within the spirit of many individuals, transforming living war-machines into poets, artists, and philosophers.”

Source: On the Warrior's Path, Second Edition: Philosophy, Fighting, and Martial Arts Mythology

“While the poet entertains he continues to search for eternal truths, for the essence of being. In his own fashion he tries to solve the riddle of time and change, to find an answer to suffering, to reveal love in the very abyss of cruelty and injustice. Strange as these words may sound I often play with the idea that when all the social theories collapse and wars and revolutions leave humanity in utter gloom, the poet--whom Plato banned from his Republic--may rise up to save us all.”

Source: Aspects of I.B. Singer

“when a great war has cut off the young men of a nation it never can be told thereafter what losses of scholars, poets, thinkers and great designers the country and the world have suffered.”

Men World War Country Young Nations Loss Cutting Poet Young Man Designer Thinker Scholar Great War

Author:James Vila Blake

“H.L.Mencken's war aims, according to the handful of observers who deigned to notice his conflict, were the overthrow of American Democracy, the Christian religion, and the YMCA. He was also credited with trying to wipe out poets and luncheon orators.”

Trying Art War Christian Democracy Poet Conflict Aim Entertainment Observers Handful Wipe Orators American Democracy Ymca

Book:Letters from Bohemia

Source: Letters from Bohemia

“I intend 'Dämmerung' to be an ironic meditation on the financial rewards of poetry and a tragicomic lament on the passing of time and the changes in literary taste. The other poets mentioned are my poetic cohort from the U.K. I wrote the piece in situ, as it were, while making a television documentary about World War I in Germany.”

World War Pieces Meditation Television Poet Taste Rewards Financial Passing Passings War Of The Worlds Germany Poetic Ironic World War I Documentaries Lament

Author:Simon Armitage

“Before now poetry has taken notice Of wars, and what are wars but politics Transformed from chronic to acute and bloody?”

War Poetry Politics Taken Poet Transformed Bloody

Book:Selected poems

Source: Selected poems

“Soldier, there is a war between the mind And sky, between thought and day and night. It is For that the poet is always in the sun, Patches the moon together in his room To his Virgilian cadences, up down, Up down. It is a war that never ends.”

Mind War Ends Together Poetry Night Rooms Sun Sky Poet Moon Soldier Patches Day And Night Cadence

Book:The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play

Source: The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play

“This life is a war we are not yet winning for our daughters' children. Don't do your enemies' work for them. Finish your own.”

Children War Life Is Poetry Winning Enemy Feminism Poet Daughter Perseverance This Life Our Daughter

Book:Moon Is Always Female

Source: Moon Is Always Female

“I have no connections here; only gusty collisions, rootless seedlings forced into bloom, that collapse. ... I am the Visiting Poet: a real unicorn, a wind-up plush dodo, a wax museum of the Movement. People want to push the buttons and see me glow.”

People Want War Real Poetry Movement Poet Wind Travel Connections Museums Collapse Buttons Vietnam War Visiting Unicorn Collision Seedlings

Author:Marge Piercy

“The poet is he who fights on the passionate Side and whoever loses he wins; when he Is defeated it is hard to say who wins.”

War Hard Poetry Fighting Winning Sides Loses Poet Passionate Defeated

Book:Collected Poems, 1919-1976

Source: Collected Poems, 1919-1976

“Goodbye, you who are, for me, the postmarks again of shattered towns--Xenia, Burnt Cabins, Hornell-- their loneliness given away in poems, only their solitude kept.”

War Poetry Given Loneliness Poet Solitude Destruction Towns Goodbye Shattered Cabins

Author:Galway Kinnell

“We might adapt for the artist the joke about there being nothing more dangerous than instruments of war in the hands of generals. In the same way, there is nothing more dangerous than justice in the hands of judges, and a paint brush in the hands of a painter! Just think of the danger to society! But today we haven't the heart to expel the painters and poets because we no longer admit to ourselves that there is any danger in keeping them in our midst.”

Thinking Way Heart Art War Hands Might Today Artist Justice Dangerous Havens Danger Poet Judging Jokes Instruments Paint Painter Midst Brushes Paint Brushes

Author:Pablo Picasso

“I don't like realism. We already know the real facts about li[fe], most of the basic facts. I'm not interested in repeating what we already know. We know about sex, about violence, about murder, about war. All these things, by the time we're 18, we're up to here. From there on we need interpreters. We need poets. We need philosophers. We need theologians, who take the same basic facts and work with them and help us make do with those facts. Facts alone are not enough. It's interpretation.”

Knows Needs War Real Enough Facts Helping Sex Violence Poet Murder Philosopher Interpretation Not Interested Realism Theologian Interpreter

Author:Ray Bradbury

“When there is war, the poet lays down the lyre, the lawyer his law reports, the schoolboy his books.”

Book War Law Poet Lays Lawyer Reports

Book:The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings

Source: The Gandhi Reader: A Sourcebook of His Life and Writings

“A poet is a poet, whether he rides in a Ford or on a donkey; a sage is a sage, whether he plays golf in New Jersey or bathes in the Ganges, or prays in the desert; and a fool is a fool, whether he be a maharaja or a president of a post-war republic.”

War Play President Poet Fool Praying Golf Posts Desert Republic Sage Jersey New Jersey Donkey Post War

Author:Ameen Rihani

“One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night.”

Men Littles War Hands Night Nations Sea Security Poet Eternal Profession Thieves Distrust Wisest Parables Elementals Amity War Love

Book:The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World

Source: The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World

“A poet must learn to wage war.”

War Poet

Author:Ho Chi Minh

“Americans would have a right to go to war with the Iraqis if we could name one author from Iraq. It disturbs me that we're going to war with somebody we know absolutely nothing about. Name one Iraqi poet, one Iraqi woman activist, one Iraqi singer. Name one Iraqi novelist. You can't. And how can you go kill someone you don't know anything about?”

Ifs Knows War Names Poet Iraq Singers Novelists Activist Absolutely Nothing Going To War

Author:Jimmy Santiago Baca

“In 1945, just at the end of World War II, the American poet Muriel Rukeyser wrote a remarkable book called The Life of Poetry. In it she says that on any particular day in the world, if poetry ceased to exist, it would immediately be reinvented on that same day.”

Ifs World Book War Ends Particular Poet War Of The Worlds Remarkable World War Ii World War I

Author:Adrienne Rich

“The war in Afghanistan was fought for feminist reasons, and the Marines were really on this feminist mission. But today, all the women in all these countries have been driven back into medieval situations. Women who were liberated, women who were doctors and lawyers and poets and writers and - you know, pushed back into this Shia set against Sunnis. The U.S. is supporting al-Qaeda militias all over this region and pretending that it's fighting Islam. So we are in a situation that is psychopathic.”

“The poets think about war more than the social scientists.”

Thinking War Social Poet Scientist

Author:George Friedman

“I'm an old guy, and I was protesting during the Vietnam War. We killed fifty Asians for every loyal American. Every artist worth a damn in this country was terribly opposed to that war, finally, when it became evident what a fiasco and meaningless butchery it was. We formed sort of a laser beam of protest. Every painter, every writer, every stand-up comedian, every composer, every novelist, every poet aimed in the same direction. Afterwards, the power of this incredible new weapon dissipated.”

War Country Artist Guy Poet Incredibles Painter Comedian Protest Meaningless Composer Loyal Vietnam War

Author:Kurt Vonnegut

“I think it better that in times like these a poet's mouth be silent, for in truth we have no gift to set a statesman right.”

Thinking War Truth Poet Quiet Mouths Silent Statesmen Times Like These

Book:Selected Poems And Four Plays

Source: Selected Poems And Four Plays

Poet Quotes

Related topics

Poet Quotes