Quotessence
Home / Topics / Poetry Quotes

Poetry Quotes

Browse 12091 quotes about Poetry.

Related topics

PoetPoetry IsArtWritingLiteratureIfsMenPoeticWorldKnowsWayLanguageVersesGreat PoetryThinkingMayInspirationalLifePeopleFormHeartMindProseShouldEndsSoulWrittenHumansBookGivingGreat PoetLightDoeHas BeensPoetry By PoetsFirstsLinesLoveWantLittlesFactsFeelsLongWellsIdeasMadePersonsPoetry By Famous PoetsReaderRhymeStillsChildrenFireMeanMomentsReadingTryingEmotionUseBelieveFeelingsPassionSpeakTogetherTwoVoiceWholeWriting PoetryArtistKindMatterPleasureRealityReasonSaidWarBreakDreamNeedsNightPhilosophicalPhilosophySelfSoundStarsEnoughExpressionObjectsPaintingRealUnderstandingAgeCertainHandsImaginationOrderReading PoetryRememberSpiritYearsmore

Poetry Quotes

“If you examine the highest poetry in the light of common sense, you can only say that it is rubbish; and in actual fact you cannot so examine it at all, because there is something in poetry which is not in the words themselves, which is not in the images suggested by the words 'O windy star blown sideways up the sky!' True poetry is itself a magic spell which is a key to the ineffable.”

IfsFactsLightPoetryStarsCommonMagicSkyKeysHighestCommon SensePoetry IsSpellsRubbishSidewaysIneffableWindy
Book:Eight Lectures on Yoga
Create image

“Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a start, he has a strong personal rhythm to vary his metrics, he is nothing. Poets mistrust philosophy. They know that once the heads are counted, each owner of a head loses his personal identify and becomes a number in some government scheme: if not as a slave or serf, at least as a party to the device of majority voting, which smothers personal views.”

IfsKnowsSelfPhilosophyGovernmentPoetryIndividualStrongLosesViewsPartyNumbersMankindPoetMajoritySlaveRhythmDamageVotingOwnersDevicesSchemesUniquenessBrushesVaryMistrustMetricsStrong PersonSerfsPersonal Views
Book:Some speculations on literature, history, and religion
Create image

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant.”

IfsPoetrySpringSeasonsAdversityWinterProsperitySnowWelcomePleasantMarchContrastSpringtimeOvercoming AdversityFebruaryFlingOvercoming ChallengesBulbsMotivational SalesSpring PoemsSpring SeasonSeasons Of LifeTimes Of AdversitySpring TimeGreat SalesWinter DaysWinter SeasonThink SpringWinter SnowGreatest WealthSpring DayGreatest SalesSpring InspirationalWinter To SpringWinter TimeSpring MayFirst Day Of SpringWelcome SpringSpring AwakeningAdversity MotivationalLife AppreciationFunny WinterWinter MonthsSpring GardeningAdversity And PerseveranceFirst SnowSpringtime InspirationalFunny SpringMarch PoemsWinter HolidayEarly SpringHappy SpringCute WinterSnow DayWinter Morning
Book:The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse
Create image

“It is not the poet's business to save man's soul but to make it worth saving . . . However, few poets have written with a clear theory of art for art's sake, it is by that theory alone that their work has been, or can be, judged; -and rightly so if we remember that art embraces all life and all humanity, and sees in the temporary and fleeting doctrines of conservative or revolutionary only the human grandeur or passion that inspires them.”

IfsMenHumansHas BeensArtSoulRememberPoetryHumanityPassionClearWrittenInspirePoetTheorySalvationEmbraceSakeConservativeDoctrineSavingRevolutionaryTemporaryJudgedFleetingGrandeur
Author:James Elroy Flecker
Create image

“I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus With tigery stripes, and a face on it Round as the moon, to stare up. I want to be looking at them when they come Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots. I see them already-the pale, star-distance faces. Now they are nothing, they are not even babies. I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods. They will wonder if I was important.”

IfsWantFirstsImportantFacesMotherPoetryFatherStarsWonderImagineBabyMoonRootsDistanceRoundsBoxesDumbStaringPaleMineralsStripes
Author:Sylvia Plath
Create image

“One day while studying a Yeats poem I decided to write poetry the rest of my life. I recognized that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character, and events of one's own life. I still feel surprised that such various substances can find shelter and nourishment in a poem. A poem in fact may be a sort of nourishing liquid, such as one uses to keep an amoeba alive. If prepared right, a poem can keep an image or a thought or insights on history or the psyche alive for years, as well as our desires and airy impulses.”

IfsFeelsWritingYearsWellsMayStillsCharacterFactsUseDesirePoetryReligiousRoomsStudyPsychologyAliveEventsOne DayDecidedPreparedVariousInsightMoodImpulseSubstanceShelterSpeculationLiquidNourishmentOccultAiryYeatsAmoeba
Author:Robert Bly
Create image

“'Who's been repeating all that hard stuff to you?' 'I read it in a book,' said Alice. 'But I had some poetry repeated to me, much easier than that, by - Tweedledee, I think it was.' 'As to poetry, you know,' said Humpty Dumpty, stretching out one of his great hands, 'I can repeat poetry as well as other folk, if it comes to that - ' 'Oh, it needn't come to that!' Alice hastily said, hoping to keep him from beginning.”

IfsThinkingKnowsWellsSaidI CanBookHardHandsPoetryStuffEasierFolksRepeatsStretchingHumpty Dumpty
Author:Lewis Carroll
Create image

“If not then you must be trying to hear us and in such cases we cannot be heard. We remain in the darkness, unseen. In the center of unpeeled bananas, we exist. Uncolored by perception. Clothed to the naked eye. Five senses cannot sense the fact of our existence. And that's the only fact. In fact, there are no facts.”

IfsTryingFactsEyePoetryExistenceCasesDarknessFiveHeardPerceptionSensesNakedUnseenBananasFive SensesNaked Eyes
Book:The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop
Create image

“The poet is born with the capacity of arranging words in such a way that something of the quality of the graces and inspirations he has received can make itself felt to other human beings in the white spaces, so to speak, between the lines of his verse. This is a great and precious gift; but if the poet remains content with his gift, if he persists in worshipping the beauty in art and nature without going on to make himself capable, through selflessness, of apprehending Beauty as it is in the divine Ground, then he is only an idolater.”

IfsWayHumansArtInspirationPoetrySpeakFeltBornLinesHuman BeingsSpaceWhiteQualityGraceDivinePoetCapableCapacityRemainsVersesPersistSelflessnessArrangingPrecious GiftsBetween The LinesWhite Space
Author:Aldous Huxley
Create image

“If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion.”

IfsThinkingWritingWellsMatterHandsPoetryChoicesFallReadingLiteratureEasyLevelsResultsFailingWrittenPoetDutyMajorityDefinitionsObligationWell BeingMinoritiesTyrantsVersesOblivionPreySinkingWell Written
Author:Joseph Brodsky
Create image