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Quotations about poetry
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
If poetry is like an orgasm, an academic can be likened to someone who studies the passion-stains on the bedsheets.
Irving Layton (1912-2006) Romanian-Canadian poet [b. Israel Pincu Lazarovitch]
“Obs II,” The Whole Bloody Bird (1969)
(Source)
Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Studies,” Essays (1625)
Fine natures are like fine poems; a glance at the first two lines suffices for a guess into the beauty that waits you, if you read on.
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) English novelist and politician
My Novel, or Varieties in English Life (1853)
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
“Cheese,” Alarms and Discursions (1911)
There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away,
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing poetry.Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) American poet
“There is no frigate like a book” (c. 1873)
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.
I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by proper culture, care, attention and labor, make himself whatever he pleases, except a great poet.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son (9 Oct 1746)
Sir, I admit your gen’ral Rule
That every Poet is a Fool;
But you yourself may serve to show it.
That ever Fool is not a Poet.Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet
“Epigram from the French” (1732)
Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.
John Wain (1925-1994) English poet, novelist, critic
Radio broadcast, BBC, London (13 Jan 1976)
We may have an excellent Ear in Musick, without being able to perform in any kind. We may judge well of Poetry, without being Poets, or possessing the least of a Poetick Vein: But we can have no tolerable Notion of Goodness, without being tolerably good.
Anthony Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) English politician and philosopher
Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, Vol. 1, “A Letter Concerning Enthusiasm” (1711)
I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
A Room of One’s Own, ch. 3 (1929)
Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Dead Beat (2005)
