A poet must needs be before his own age, to be even with posterity.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
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
You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it tick… You’re back with the mystery of having been moved by words. The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps… so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in.
—Dylan Thomas (1914–53) Welsh Poet, Author
Poetry is the shortest way of saying something. It lets us express a dime’s worth of ideas, or a quarter’s worth of emotion, with a nickel’s worth of words.
—Dero A. Saunders (1914–2002) American Business Editor
In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well
—Paul Valery (1871–1945) French Critic, Poet
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
Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.
—Don Marquis (1878–1937) American Humorist, Journalist, Author
We all write poems. It is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.
—John Fowles (1926–2005) English Novelist
The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it.
—Sylvia Plath (1932–63) American Poet, Novelist
Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
I have met with most poetry on trunks; so that I am apt to consider the trunk-maker as the sexton of authorship.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Poetry is adolescence fermented and thus preserved
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish Critic, Journalist, Philosopher
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 either something that lives like fire inside you—like music to the musician or Marxism to the Communist—or else it is nothing, an empty formalized bore around which pedants can endlessly drone their notes and explanations.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American Novelist
Poetry doesn’t belong to those who write it, but to those who need it.
—Unknown
The essence of poetry is will and passion.
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English Essayist
Poetry is a mere drug, Sir.
—George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish Dramatist
I have written some poetry that I don’t understand myself.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.
—Allen Ginsberg (1926–97) American Poet, Activist
I would as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Poetry is not made out of the understanding. The question of common sense is always: “What is it good for?” a question which would abolish the rose, and be triumphantly answered by the cabbage.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
Poetry, good sir, in my opinion, is like a tender virgin, very young, and extremely beautiful, whom divers others virgins—namely, all the other sciences—make it their business to enrich, polish and adorn; and to her it belongs to make use of them all, and on her part to give a lustre to them all.
—Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish Novelist
One merit of poetry few persons will deny; it says more, and in fewer words, than prose.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
This poem will never reach its destination. On Rousseau’s Ode To Posterity
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
There is only beauty—and it has only one perfect expression—poetry. All the rest is a lie—except for those who live by the body, love, and, that love of the mind, friendship. For me, Poetry takes the place of love, because it is enamored of itself, and because its sensual delight falls back deliciously in my soul.
—Stephane Mallarme (1842–98) French Symbolist Poet
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
A good poet’s made as well as born.
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English Dramatist, Poet, Actor
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