Poetry quotes
Aristotle 384-322 BC
Poetics
So poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history.
Arnold Matthew 1822-1888
Essays in Criticism
Poetry is at bottom a criticism of life.
Auden W. H. 1907-1973
‘In memory of W. B. Yeats'
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
Auden W. H. 1907-1973
My poetry doesn't change from place to place - it changes with the years. It's very important to
be one's age. You get ideas you have to turn down - ‘I'm sorry, no longer' , I'm sorry, not yet.'
Birney Earle
The essentials of poetry are rhythm, dance and the human voice.
Bodenheim Maxwell 1893-1954
Poetry is the impish attempt to paint the colour of the wind.
Butler Samuel ‘Hudibras' 1612-1680
Hudibras
She that with poetry is won,
Is but a desk to write upon.
Byron Lord 1788-1824
Letter to Annabella Milbanke
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.
Cocteau Jean 1889-1963
Journal d'un inconnu
Poetry is a religion with no hope.
Coleridge Samuel Taylor 1772-1834
Table Talk
The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man.
Connolly Cyril 1903-1974
Most people do not believe in anything very much and our greatest poetry is given to us by those that do.
Donne John 1572-1631
‘The Triple Fool'
I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry.
Dryden John 1631-1700
„Prologue to the University of Oxon"
So poetry, which is in Oxford made
An art, in London only is a trade.
Eliot George 1819-1880
Poetry is a mug's game.
Frost Robert 1874-1963
Poetry should be common in experience but uncommon in books.
Frost Robert 1874-1963
Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.
Goethe Johann von 1749-1832
Maximen und Reflexionen
Superstition is the poetry of life.
Graves Robert 1895-1985
There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money either.
Hart Josephine
Poetry contains almost all you need to know about life.
Howe Joseph 1804-1873
Poetry was the maiden I loved, but politics was the harridan I married.
Kaufman Paul and Anthony Mike
Poetry in motion.
Keats John 1795-1821
Letter to Benjamin Bailey
A long poem is a test of invention which I take to be the polar star of poetry, as fancy is the sails, and imagination the rudder.
Keats John 1795-1821
Letter to J. H. Reynolds
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.
Keats John 1795-1821
Letter to John Taylor
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.
Keats John 1795-1821
Letter to John Taylor
If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.
Kennedy John F. 1917-1963
When power leads man toward 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 truths which must serve as the touchstone of our judgement.
Landor Walter Savage 1775-1864
Imaginary Conversations
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.
Leavis F. R. 1895-1978
New Bearings in English Poetry
The Sitwells belong to the history of publicity rather than of poetry.
McGinley Phyllis
Not reading poetry amounts to a national pastime here.
Macaulay Baron (Thomas Babington) 1800-1859
Essays ... „Milton"
As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.
Mcaulay Baron (Thomas Babington) 1800-1859
Essays ... „Moore's - Life of Lord Byron"
From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, a system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your neighbour, and to love your neighbour's wife.
Marquis Don 1878-1937
Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
Mill John Stuart 1806-1873
Dissertations and Discussion
If we may be excused the antithesis, we should say that eloquence is heard, poetry is overheard.
Mitchell Adrian 1932
Poems
Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.
Moore Marianne 1887-1972
Poetry is all nouns and verbs.
Owen Wilfred 1893-1918
My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity.
Plath Sylvia 1932-1963
For me, poetry is an evasion of the real job of writing prose.
Pope Alexander 1688-1744
‘An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot'
And he, whose fustian's so sublimely bad,
It is not poetry, but prose run mad.
Pound Ezra 1885-1972
Hugh Selwyn Mauberley
For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain ‘the sublime'
In the old sense. Wrong from the start -
Roux Joseph
Science is for those who learn; poetry for those who know.
Sandburg Carl 1878-1967
Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.
Sandburg Carl 1878-1967
‘Poetry Considered'
Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during a moment.
Shelley Percy Bysshe 1792-1822
Defence of Poetry
Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
Simonides c.556-486 BC
In Plutarch
Painting is silent poetry, poetry is eloquent painting.
Stevens Wallace 1879-1955
‘A High - Toned old Christian Woman'
Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Winchilsea Lady Anne Finch 1661-1720
„Enquiry after Peace"
Love (if such a thing there be)
Is all despair, or ecstasy.
Poetry's the feverish fit,
Th' o'erflowing of unbounded wit.
Wordsworth William 1770-1850
Lyrical Ballads - Preface
Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science.
Wordsworth William 1770-1850
Lyrical Ballads - Preface
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.
Yeats William Butler 1865-1939
Of our conflicts with others we make rhetoric; of our conflicts with ourselves we make poetry.