By poetry we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words, what the painter does by means of colors.
—Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–59) English Historian, Essayist, Philanthropist
When power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
Sad is his lot, who, once at least in his life, has not been a poet.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
The essence of poetry is will and passion.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
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
Every old poem is sacred.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
As nightingales feed on glow worms, so poets live upon the living light of nature and beauty.
—Gamaliel Bailey (1807–59) American Journalist
He who finds elevated and lofty pleasure in the feeling of poetry is a true poet, though he never composed a line of verse in his entire lifetime.
—George Sand (1804–76) French Novelist, Dramatist
Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
—Paul Valery (1871–1945) French Critic, Poet
A poet ought not to pick nature’s pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
No poems can please for long or live that are written by water drinkers.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
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
The poet, whether in prose or verse, the creator, can only stamp his images forcibly on the page, in proportion as he has forcibly felt, ardently nursed, and long brooded over them.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
The poetical impression of any object is that uneasy, exquisite sense of beauty or power that cannot be contained within itself; that is impatient of all limit; that (as flame bends to flame) strives to link itself to some other image of kindred beauty or grandeur; to enshrine itself, as it were, in the highest forms of fancy, and to relieve the aching sense of pleasure by expressing it in the boldest manner.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Poetry doesn’t belong to those who write it, but to those who need it.
—Unknown
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
All one’s inventions are true, you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.
—Gustave Flaubert (1821–80) French Novelist, Playwright, Short Story Writer
One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.
—Billy Collins (b.1941) American Poet
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
Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.
—Charles Simic (1938–2023) Serbian-American Poet
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
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
It seems just possible that a poem might happen to a very young man: but a poem is not poetry—That is a life.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Poetry makes nothing happen. It survives in the valley of its saying.
—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 journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the sky.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.
—Diane Ackerman (b.1948) American Poet, Essayist, Naturalist
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