Poets are all who love and feel great truths, and tell them.
—Gamaliel Bailey (1807–59) American Journalist
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in the case of poetry, it’s the exact opposite!
—Paul Dirac (1902–84) English Theoretical Physicist
Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
The poetic act consists of suddenly seeing that an idea splits up into a number of equal motifs and of grouping them; they rhyme.
—Stephane Mallarme (1842–98) French Symbolist Poet
Poetry is most just to its divine origin, when it administers the comforts and breathes the thoughts of religion.
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Poet
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order;—poetry = the best words in the best order.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
You arrive at truth through poetry; I arrive at poetry through truth.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
What a poem means is as much what it means to others as what it means to the author; and indeed, in the course of time a poet may become merely reader in respect to his own works, forgetting his original meaning.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
I by no means rank poetry high in the scale of intelligence—this may look like affectation but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
The writing of a poem is like a child throwing stones into a mineshaft. You compose first, then you listen for the reverberation.
—James Fenton
Who among us has not, in moments of ambition, dreamt of the miracle of a form of poetic prose, musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of our souls, the undulating movements of our reveries, and the convulsive movements of our consciences? This obsessive ideal springs above all from frequent contact with enormous cities, from the junction of their innumerable connections.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice; if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
Poets are never young in one sense. Their delicate ear hears the far-off whispers of eternity, which coarser souls must travel toward for scores of years before their dull sense is touched by them.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement… says heaven and earth in one word… speaks of himself and his predicament as though for the first time. It has the virtue of being able to say twice as much as prose in half the time, and the drawback, if you do not give it your full attention, of seeming to say half as much in twice the time.
—Christopher Fry (1907–2005) English Poet, Playwright
Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Poetry is itself a thing of God.—He made his prophets poets; and the more we feel of poesie do we become like God in love and power.
—Gamaliel Bailey (1807–59) American Journalist
A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.
—Stephen Spender (1909–95) English Poet, Critic
Poetry is what is lost in translation.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Only poetry inspires poetry.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
May I be permitted to add a few words with regard to the poetry? Then I will speak to those who are judges thereof, with all freedom and unreserve. To these I may say, with-out offence, 1. In these hymns there is no doggerel ; no botches ; nothing put in to patch up the rhyme ; no feeble expletives. 2. Here is nothing turgid or bombast, on the one hand, or low and creeping, on the other. 3. here are no cant expressions ; no words without meaning. Those who impute this to us, know not what they say. We talk common sense, both in prose and verse, and use no words but in a fixed and determinate sense. 4. Here are, allow me to say, both the purity, the strength, and the elegance of the English language; and, at the same time, the utmost simplicity and plainness, suited to every capacity. Lastly, I desire men of taste to judge, (these are the only competent judges,) whether there be not in some of the following hymns the true spirit of poetry, such as cannot be acquired by art and labour, but must be the gift of nature. By labour, a man may become a tolerable imitator of Spenser, Shakspeare, or Milton ; and may heap together pretty compound epithets, as pale-eyed, meek-eyed, and the like ; but unless he be born a poet, he will never attain the genuine spirit of poetry.
—John Wesley (1703–91) British Methodist Religious Leader, Preacher, Theologian
I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed.
—Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian Novelist
At times it has been doubtful to me if Emerson really knows or feels what Poetry is at its highest, as in the Bible, for instance, or Homer or Shakespeare. I see he covertly or plainly likes best superb verbal polish, or something old or odd
—Walt Whitman (1819–92) American Poet, Essayist, Journalist, American, Poet, Essayist, Journalist
Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward: it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the good and beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.
—Philip Massinger (1583–1640) English Playwright
War talk by men who have been in a war is always interesting; whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon is likely to be dull.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
Poetry is music in words: and music is poetry in sound: both excellent sauce, but those have lived and died poor, who made them their meat.
—Thomas Fuller (1608–61) English Cleric, Historian
It does not need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new relationship is a new word.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
An artist who works in marble or colors has them all to himself and his tribe, but the man who moulds his thought in verse has to employ the materials vulgarized by everybody’s use, and glorify them by his handling.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–94) American Physician, Essayist
We have more poets than judges and interpreters of poetry.—It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Any healthy man can go without food for two days—but not without poetry.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
—Don Marquis (1878–1937) American Humorist, Journalist, Author
It is shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to literary productions in rhyme and metre. The written poem is only poetry talking, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are poetry acting. Milton and Goethe, at their desks, were not more truly poets than Phidias with his chisel, Raphael at his easel, or deaf Beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains which he himself could never hope to hear.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
The scientist has marched in and taken the place of the poet. But one day somebody will find the solution to the problems of the world and remember, it will be a poet, not a scientist.
—Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American Architect
Superstition is the poetry of life, so that it does not injure the poet to be superstitious.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
Here undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy:—in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls) that my “poems” are competing.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Poetry should only occupy the idle.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist