Poetry Quotes — page 9

Every good poet includes a critic; the reverse will not hold.

Whatever is genuine in social relations endures, despite of time, error, absence, and destiny; and that which has no inherent vitality had better die at once. A great poet has truly declared that constancy is no virtue, but a fact.

Still the child betrays the passions of the man, and there are hymns, though few in number, in the Veda, so full of thought and speculation that at this early period no poet in any other nation could have conceived them.

It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.

Valiant in velvet, light in ragged luck, Most vain, most generous, sternly critical, Buffoon and poet, lover and sensualist: A deal of Ariel, just a streak of Puck, Much Antony, of Hamlet most of all, And something of the Shorter-Catechist.

If Milton had written in Italian, he would have been, in my opinion, the most perfect poet in modern languages; for his own strength of thought would have condensed and hardened that speech to a proper degree.

Poetry's magic lies in the imagery which satifies even without interpretation..it is accepted as easily as it was created.

Besides, their Aristotle is a poet in text, his principles are but fancies, and they stand more on our concessions, then his bottom.

Write poetry for its own sake — not in a spirit of emulation, and not with a view to celebrity; the less you aim at that the more likely you will be to deserve and finally to obtain it.

"How divine is utterance!" she said. "As we to the brutes, poets are to us."

"Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes," I dread a Scotchman bringing ancient verse.

True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love's sake have in them a poetry that is immortal.

And we do want poetry for its beauty […] Yes, only for its beauty; for its moral power over us—its teaching, comforting, and elevating power all depend on its beauty.

The unknown Is life to love, religion, poetry.

When Poetry thus keeps its place as the handmaiden of piety, it shall attain not a poor perishable wreath, but a crown that fadeth not away.

Travellers like poets are mostly an angry race.

A parent, unlike a poet, is not born, he is made.

Went to the new Church both morning and afternoon, and read service in the afternoon. I got through it all with great success, till I came to read out the first verse of the hymn before the sermon, where the two words ‘strife …

There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his …

If Poverty be a Title to Poetry, I am sure nobody can dispute mine. I own myself of the Company of Beggars; and I make one at their Weekly Festivals at St. Giles's. I have a small Yearly Salary for my Catches, and am welcome to a Dinner …

A poet's mind should be clear and unsullied; and the muses being virgins, their performances should agree with their condition.

Familiarity with any great thing removes our awe of it. The great general is only terrible to the enemy; the great poet is frequently scolded by his wife; the children of the great statesman clamber about his knees with perfect trust and …

And muse on Nature with a poet's eye.

Poetry and imagination begin life. A child will fall on its knees on the gravel walk at the sight of a pink hawthorn in full flower, when it is by itself, to praise God for it.