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 luster to […]
Poetry Quotes
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.
To be a poet at twenty is to be twenty: to be a poet at forty is to be a poet.
There are other similarities between poetry and children’s speech. Poets tend to look for significant evocative detail – something straight out of life – to carry their meaning, and to avoid the vaguely general or abstract terms. With young children it is not a matter of choice. Their ideas must take a concrete form of […]
Nothing probably is more dangerous for the human race than science without poetry, civilization without culture.
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.
How willingly I would as a poet exchange some of this lumbering, ponderous, helpless knowledge of books for some experience of life and man. But all this grumbling is a vile thing.
Most joyful the Poet be; It is through him that all men see.
Poetry: the best words in the best order.
Would you have your songs endure? Build on the human heart.
