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Poetry Quotes

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Poetry Quotes

“The difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children.”

Children Poetry Differences Ready Poet Our Children Your Children Rhetoric Killing Yourself

Book:Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

Source: Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“What raises great poetry above all else--it is the entire person and also the entire world.”

World Persons Character Poetry Poet Raises Great Poet Great Poetry

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“Prose and poetry are as different as food and drink.”

Different Poetry Food Poet Drink Prose Food And Drink Prose And Poetry

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“The manifestation of poetry in external life is formal perfection. True sentiment grows within, and art must represent internal phenomena externally.”

Life Art Life Is Poetry Grows Poet Perfection Manifestation Internals Sentiments Formal

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“Why must ancients, and provided the same talent, be better than modern authors? Free to exploit the vast realm of the simpleand the natural, they did not have to be artificial in order to be original (which every artist aspires to be).”

Art Poetry Artist Order Natural Modern Talent Poet Originals Realms Artificial Aspire Exploits

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“A wise man can and should stand above his times, not so the poet, but he should be their apex.”

Men Should Wisdom Poetry Wise Poet Excellence Apex

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“The spirit of poetry combines the profundity of the philosopher and the child's delight in bright pictures.”

Children Spirit Poetry Poet Philosophical Philosopher Delight Profundity

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“The way in which modern German poetry follows theories reminds me of pupils who, scolded by their teacher for their insubordination, justify themselves by saying that they invented new rules of propriety according to which they are quite well- behaved.”

Way Wells Poetry Teacher Modern Poet Theory Justify Aesthetics Pupils Propriety Scolded Insubordination

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“The present is never poetic as it serves necessity, necessity, however, is prosaic.”

Poetry Poet Poetic

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“A tailor can adapt to any medium, be it poetry, be it criticism. As a poet, he can mend, and with the scissors of criticism he candivide.”

Poetry Poet Criticism Mediums Poetry Is Tailors Scissors

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“Our poetry emulates the recent progress in military strategy: Our army's strength is the foot soldiers.”

Poetry Progress Feet Military Strength Poet Army Strategy Soldier Mediocrity Emulate Military Strategy

Author:Franz Grillparzer

“We tend to be so bombarded with information, and we move so quickly, that there's a tendency to treat everything on the surface level and process things quickly. This is antithetical to the kind of openness and perception you have to have to be receptive to poetry.poetry seems to exist in a parallel universe outside daily life in America.”

Kind Seems America Moving Poetry Universe Process Levels Information Poet Perception Treats Surface Tendencies Daily Life Openness Parallels Receptive Parallel Universe Bombarded

Author:Rita Dove

“the only truth is face to face, the poem whose words become your mouth and dying in black and white we fight for what we love, not are”

Truth Faces Poetry Fighting Black White Dying Poet Truth Is Racism Mouths Black And White Face To Face

Book:Odes

Source: Odes

“But sometimes everything I write with the threadbare art of my eye seems a snapshot”

Writing Art Sometimes Seems Eye Poetry Poet Snapshots

Book:Robert Lowell: a tribute

Source: Robert Lowell: a tribute

“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme-- why are they no help to me now I want to make something imagined, not recalled?”

Want Helping Poetry Poet Blessed Structure Plot Rhyme

Book:Robert Lowell: a tribute

Source: Robert Lowell: a tribute

“The poem is lonely. It is lonely and en route. Its author stays with it. Does this very fact not place the poem already here, at its inception, in the encounter, in the mystery of encounter?”

Doe Facts Poetry Mystery Loneliness Poet Lonely Encounters Routes Inception

Book:Paul Celan: Selections

Source: Paul Celan: Selections

“German poetry is going in a very different direction from French poetry.... Its language has become more sober, more factual. It distrusts "beauty." It tries to be truthful.”

Trying Different Truth Poetry Language Beauty Poet Poetry Is Truthful Sober Distrust Factual Different Directions Being Truthful French Poetry

Book:Collected Prose

Source: Collected Prose

“I have never felt a placard and a poem are in any way similar.”

Way Poetry Politics Felt Poet

Author:Kristin Hunter

“Poetry a riprap on the slick rock of metaphysics”

Poetry Rocks Poet Metaphysics Slick

Book:Myths & Texts

Source: Myths & Texts

“The poet who speaks out of the deepest instincts of man will be heard. The poet who creates a myth beyond the power of man to realize is gagged at the peril of the group that binds him. He is the true revolutionary: he builds a new world.”

Men World Poetry Speak Realizing Heard Groups Poet Instinct Myth Revolutionary New World Peril Speaks Out

Author:Babette Deutsch

“I wrote a great deal of verse. In fact, every time I fell in love, which was rather often, I burst into the emotional sort of thing which is perennially salable.”

Facts Poetry Deals Emotional Poet Verses

Book:A woman of fifty

Source: A woman of fifty

“... the attempt to control poetry, to subordinate it to extrapoetic ends, constitutes misuse.... it may be poetry's stubborn quality of rockbottom, intrinsic uselessness whichconstitutes the guarantee of its integrity, and hence of its ultimate value to us.”

May Ends Poetry Values Quality Feminism Poet Integrity Ultimate Guarantees Stubborn Subordinates Misuse Uselessness

Author:Jan Clausen

“Let all Black Poets die as trumpets, And be buried in the dust of marching feet.”

Death Poetry Dies Black Feet Poet Dust Buried Trumpets All Black

Book:The Essential Etheridge Knight

Source: The Essential Etheridge Knight

“Black Poets should live--not leap From steel bridges, like the white boys do.”

Should Poetry Black White Boys Poet Bridges Leap Steel

Book:Belly song and other poems

Source: Belly song and other poems

“There is nothing more poetic than the truth. He who does not see poetry in it will always be a poor versifier outside of it.”

Doe Truth Poetry Poor Poet Poetic

Author:Multatuli

“When in public poetry should take off its clothes and wave to the nearest person in sight; it should be seen in the company of thieves and lovers rather than that of journalists and publishers.”

Should Persons Poetry Company Poet Lovers Clothes Sight Wave Journalist Thieves Publishers

Book:Selected poems

Source: Selected poems

“He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child. He must take to pieces the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn much of that knowledge which has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief title to superiority. His very talents will be a hindrance to him.”

Mind Firsts Children Littles Whole Poetry Pieces Talent Poet Chiefs Titles Enlightened Aspire Superiority Hindrance Great Poet Unlearn

Author:Thomas B. Macaulay

“He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child.”

Firsts Children Littles Poetry Poet Enlightened Aspire Great Poet

Author:Thomas B. Macaulay

“I am grown old, and have possibly lost a great deal of that fire, which formerly made me love fire in others at any rate, and however attended with smoke: but now I must have all sense, and cannot, for the sake of five righteous lines, forgive a thousand absurd ones.”

Made Poetry Literature Lost Lines Deals Fire Five Poet Thousand Forgiving Rate Sake Absurd Smoke Righteous Obscurity

Book:Lord Chesterfield's Letters

Source: Lord Chesterfield's Letters

“The poet may say or sing, not as things were, but as they ought to have been; but the historian must pen them, not as they ought to have been, but as they really were.”

May Has Beens Poetry Poet Ought Pens Historian

Book:Don Quixote de la Mancha

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha

“True poets, like great artists, have scarcely any childhood, and no old age.”

Age Poetry Artist Childhood Poet Old Age Great Art Great Artist

Author:Sophie Swetchine

“Poetry is the Devil's wine.”

Poetry Devil Wine Poetry Is

Author:Saint Augustine

“England still waits for the supreme moment of her literature--for the great poet who shall voice her, or, better still, for the thousand little poets whose voices shall pass into our common talk.”

Littles Stills Moments Poetry Literature Waiting Voice Common Poet Thousand England Supreme Great Poet

Book:Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Collected Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated)

“It seems to me a purely lyric poet gives himself, right down to his sex, to his mood, utterly and abandonedly, whirls himself roundtill he spontaneously combusts into verse. He has nothing that goes on, no passion, only a few intense moods, separate like odd stars, and when each has burned away, he must die.”

Giving Seems Poetry Dies Passion Stars Sex Poet Goes On Mood Intense Odd Burned Verses

Author:D. H. Lawrence

“It is a curious thing how poets tend to become ascetics.... Even a debauch for them is a self-flagellation. They go on the loose in cruelty against themselves, admitting that they are pandering to, and despising, the lower self.”

Self Poetry Poet Goes On Cruelty Curious Admitting

Book:The Letters of D. H. Lawrence

Source: The Letters of D. H. Lawrence

“In the end, for congenial sympathy, for poetry, for work, for original feeling and expression, for perfect companionship with one's friends--give me the country.”

Giving Ends Country Feelings Poetry Perfect Expression Friends Give Me Originals Sympathy Companionship Country Life

Book:The Letters of D. H. Lawrence

Source: The Letters of D. H. Lawrence

“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

“With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse”

Poetry Poet Curse Verses Farming Vineyards

Book:Canción de cuna y otros poemas

Source: Canción de cuna y otros poemas

“You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated.”

Poetry Poet Humiliated

Author:W. H. Auden

“Out of the attempt to harmonize our actual life with our aspirations, our experience with our faith, we make poetry, - or, it may be, religion.”

May Poetry Religion Aspiration Actual Life

Author:Anna Brownell Jameson

“In love, a verse of Mimnermus has more power than one of Homer.”

Poetry Power Poet Verses

Author:Propertius

“The whole history of modern poetry is a continuous commentary on the short text of philosophy: every art should become science, and every science should become art; poetry and philosophy should be united.”

Should Art Philosophy Whole Poetry United Modern Poet Philosophical Poetry Is Commentary Modern Poetry

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“Poetry can be criticized only through poetry. A critique which itself is not a work of art, either in content as representation of the necessary impression in the process of creation, or through its beautiful form and in its liberal tone in the spirit of the old Roman satire, has no right of citizenship in the realm of art.”

Art Beautiful Form Spirit Poetry Process Creation Poet Criticism Impression Realms Tone Satire Works Of Art Representation Citizenship Critique

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“Just as a child is really a thing that wants to become a man, so is the poem an object of nature that wants to become an object ofart.”

Men Want Children Poetry Objects Poet

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“In every good poem everything must be both deliberate and instinctive. That is how the poem becomes ideal.”

Poetry Poet Ideals Very Good Deliberate

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“There is so much poetry, and yet nothing is more rare than a poetic work. This is what the masses make out of poetical sketches, studies, aphorisms, trends, ruins, and raw material.”

Poetry Study Poet Materials Mass Ruins Poetic Trends Aphorism Raw Materials Make Out

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“In many a poetic work, one gets here and there, instead of representation merely a title indicating that this or that was supposedto be represented here, that the artist has been prevented from doing it and most humbly asks to be kindly excused.”

Has Beens Poetry Artist Asks Poet Titles Poetic Representation Here And There

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“Since poetry is infinitely valuable, I do not understand why it should be more valuable than this or that which is also infinitelyvaluable. There are artists who perhaps do not think art to be too great, for this is impossible, and yet they are not free enough to be able to rise above their own best accomplishments.”

Thinking Should Art Enough Able Poetry Artist Impossible Poet Valuable Accomplishment Poetry Is Rise Above

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“In the ancients, one sees the accomplished letter of entire poetry: in the moderns, one has the presentiment of the spirit in becoming.”

Spirit Poetry Poet Becoming Letters Accomplished

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“Without poetry, religion becomes obscure, false, and malignant; without philosophy, licentious in all wantonness, and lascivious to the point of self-castration.”

Self Philosophy Poetry Religion Poet Philosophical Obscure Castration

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel