Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
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
I take as metaphysical poetry that in which what is ordinarily apprehensible only by thought is brought within the grasp of feeling, or that in which what is ordinarily only felt is transformed into thought without ceasing to be feeling.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
Each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
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
Poetry must have something in it that is barbaric, vast and wild.
—Denis Diderot (1713–84) French Philosopher, Writer
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It finds the thought and the thought finds the words.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Poetry is life distilled.
—Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American Poet , Writer
A poet’s pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it.
—E. B. White (1985–99) American Essayist, Humorist
Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.
—Walter Savage Landor (1775–1864) English Writer, Poet
Poetry is the utterance of deep and heart-felt truth—the true poet is very near the oracle.
—Edwin Hubbell Chapin (1814–80) American Preacher, Poet
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
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those we have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these things.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
The fact that there are so many weak, poor and boring stories and novels written and published in America has been ascribed by our rebels to the horrible squareness of our institutions, the idiocy of power, the debasement of sexual instincts, and the failure of writers to be alienated enough. The poems and novels of these same rebellious spirits, and their theoretical statements, are grimy and gritty and very boring too, besides being nonsensical, and it is evident by now that polymorphous sexuality and vehement declarations of alienation are not going to produce great works of art either.
—Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-American Novelist
The courage of the poets is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
But all art is sensual and poetry particularly so. It is directly, that is, of the senses, and since the senses do not exist without an object for their employment all art is necessarily objective. It doesn’t declaim or explain, it presents.
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) American Poet, Novelist, Cultural Historian
I don’t know a better preparation for life than a love of poetry and a good digestion.
—Zona Gale (1874–1938) American Novelist, Story Writer, Dramatist
Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art.
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English Novelist, Poet
I would as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite expressions.
—Philibert Joseph Roux (1780–1854) French Surgeon
A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings.
—Jules Renard (1864–1910) French Writer, Diarist
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
Any healthy man can go without food for two days—but not without poetry.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
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 should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity—it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
—John Keats (1795–1821) English Poet
Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian Poet
A poet can survive anything but a misprint.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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