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
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
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
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
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
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
Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Written poetry is worth reading once, and then should be destroyed. Let the dead poets make way for others. Then we might even come to see that it is our veneration for what has already been created, however beautiful and valid it may be, that petrifies us.
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948) French Actor, Drama Theorist
A poet can survive anything but a misprint.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
As a poet there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one’s language against corruption. When it is corrupted, people lose faith in what they hear and this leads to violence.
—W. H. Auden (1907–73) British-born American Poet, Dramatist
Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
A person born with an instinct for poverty.
—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American Writer, Publisher, Artist, Philosopher
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
An age which is incapable of poetry is incapable of any kind of literature except the cleverness of a decadence.
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959) American Novelist
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
You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
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
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
With me poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) 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
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
She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me written by an Italian poet from the 13th century and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul from me to you.
—Bob Dylan (b.1941) American Singer-songwriter
The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man’s body.
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English Philosopher
A poem is never finished, only abandoned.
—Paul Valery (1871–1945) French Critic, Poet
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.
—Philip Massinger (1583–1640) English Playwright
Verses which do not teach men new and moving truths do not deserve to be read.
—Voltaire (1694–1778) French Philosopher, Author
No one ever was a great poet, that applied himself much to anything else.
—William Temple (1881–1944) British Clergyman, Theologian
That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
The blood jet is poetry and there is no stopping it.
—Sylvia Plath (1932–63) American Poet, 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
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
Any healthy man can go without food for two days—but not without poetry.
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) French Poet, Art Critic, Essayist, Translator
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
Poetry is a mere drug, Sir.
—George Farquhar (1677–1707) Irish Dramatist
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
Every old poem is sacred.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (65–8 BCE) Roman Poet
The job of the poet is to render the world—to see it and report it without loss, without perversion. No poet ever talks about feelings. Only sentimental people do.
—Mark Van Doren (1894–1972) American Poet, Writer, Critic
To a poet, silence is an acceptable response, even a flattering one.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
I have written some poetry that I don’t understand myself.
—Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American Biographer, Novelist, Socialist
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist