Robert Graves Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

  Robert Graves

  Funny, Hilarious, Laughter

  The Observer, December 06, 1964.

  20 Copy quote

• If I thought that any poem of mine could have been written by anyone else, either a contemporary or a forerunner, I should suppress it with a blush; and I should do the same if I ever found I were imitating myself. Every poem should be new, unexpected, inimitable, and incapable of being parodied.

  Robert Graves

  Unexpected, Should, Found

  7 Copy quote

• Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

  Robert Graves

  Facts, Poet, Achieve

  "The White Goddess".

  10 Copy quote

• What we now call "finance" is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.

  Robert Graves

  Intellectual, Finance, Humans

  Robert Graves (1965). “Mammon and the black goddess”

  12 Copy quote

• There should be two main objectives in ordinary prose writing: to convey a message and to include in it nothing that will distract the reader's attention or check his habitual pace of reading - he should feel that he is seated at ease in a taxi, not riding a temperamental horse through traffic.

  Robert Graves

  Horse, Reading, Writing

  Robert Graves (2006). “The Long Weekend : a Social History of Great Britain 1918-1939: And, The Reader Over Your Shoulder : a Handbook for Writers of English Prose”, Carcanet Press

  6 Copy quote

• When the immense drugged universe explodes In a cascade of unendurable colour And leaves us gasping naked, This is no more than the ectasy of chaos: Hold fast, with both hands, to that royal love Which alone, as we know certainly, restores Fragmentation into true being. Ecstasy of Chaos

  Robert Graves

  Hands, Naked, Royal

  Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Dunstan Ward (1999). “Complete poems”, Carcanet Pr

  4 Copy quote

• There is one story and one story only.

  Robert Graves

  Stories, Crafts

  Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.73, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  4 Copy quote

• A well-chosen anthology is a complete dispensary of medicine for the more common mental disorders, and may be used as much for prevention as cure.

  Robert Graves

  Science, Medicine, May

  9 Copy quote

• Let all the poison that lurks in the mud, hatch out.

  Robert Graves

  Poison, Mud

  Robert Graves, Richard Francis (2000). “I, Claudius ; and, Claudius the god”, Carcanet Press Ltd.

  4 Copy quote

• This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet's destiny is to love.

  Robert Graves

  Philosophical, Destiny, Poet

  9 Copy quote

• No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.

  Robert Graves

  Dream, Facts, Poetic

  Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.105, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  6 Copy quote

• The art of poetry consists in taking the poem through draft after draft, without losing its inspirational magic: he removes everything irrelevant or distracting, and tightens up what is left. Lazy poets never carry their early drafts far enough: some even believe that virtue lies in the original doodle scrawled on the back of an envelope.

  Robert Graves

  Art, Lying, Believe

  Robert Graves (1960). “Food for Centaurs: Stories, Talks, Critical Studies, Poems”

  4 Copy quote

• We once discussed which were the cleanest troops in the trenches, taken by nationalities. We agreed on a descending-order like this: English and German Protestants; Northern Irish, Welsh and Canadians; Irish and German Catholics; Scots; Mohammedan Indians; Algerians; Portugese; Belgians; French. We put the Belgians and French there for spite; they could not have been dirtier than the Algerians and the Portugese.

  Robert Graves

  War, Taken, Order

  10 Copy quote

• In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.

  Robert Graves

  Love, Sports, Inspiration

  Robert Graves (1936). “The Future of Swearing and Improper Language”

  6 Copy quote

• Lovers to-day and for all time Preserve the meaning of my rhyme: Love is not kindly nor yet grim But does to you as you to him.

  Robert Graves

  Love Is, Doe, Lovers

  Robert Graves (1920). “Country Sentiment”

  4 Copy quote

• I was last in Rome in AD 540 when it was full of Goths and their heavy horses. It has changed a great deal since then.

  Robert Graves

  Horse, Rome, Lasts

  13 Copy quote

• Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence.
  Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves. Of never acquiescing in a fraud; of never accepting the secondary-rate in poetry, painting, music, love, friends. Of safeguarding our poetic institutions against the encroachments of mechanized, insensate, inhumane, abstract rationality.

  Robert Graves

  Humorous, Poetry, Fancy

  "The Crane Bag". Book by Robert Graves. "The Case for Xanthippe", 1969.

  9 Copy quote

• When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.

  Robert Graves

  Dream, Hurt, Pain

  Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Dunstan Ward (1999). “Complete poems”, Carcanet Pr

  11 Copy quote

• She told me that all the girls in Annezin prayed every night for the war to end and for the English to go away as soon as their money was spent. She said that the clause about the money was always repeated in case God should miss it.

  Robert Graves

  Girl, War, Night

  "Goodbye to all that: and other great war writings".

  12 Copy quote

• As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned.

  Robert Graves

  Tree, Murder, Pears

  Robert Graves, Richard Francis (2000). “I, Claudius ; and, Claudius the god”, Carcanet Press Ltd.

  8 Copy quote

• I was thinking, "So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I'll be able to make people read my books now.

  Robert Graves

  Book, Thinking, People

  Robert Graves, Richard Francis (2000). “I, Claudius ; and, Claudius the god”, Carcanet Press Ltd.

  11 Copy quote

• Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another; now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale.

  Robert Graves

  Marriage, Men, Bills

  Robert Graves (1965). “Mammon and the black goddess”

  5 Copy quote

• Before an attack, the platoon pools all its available cash and the survivors divide it up afterwards. Those who are killed can't complain, the wounded would have given far more than that to escape as they have, and the unwounded regard the money as a consolation prize for still being here.

  Robert Graves

  War, Complaining, Survivor

  16 Copy quote

• Hardly one soldier in a hundred was inspired by religious feeling of even the crudest kind. It would have been difficult to remain religious in the trenches even if one had survived the irreligion of the training battalion at home.

  Robert Graves

  Religious, Home, Feelings

  Robert Graves (1957). “Good-bye to all that”, Turtleback Books

  17 Copy quote

• I do not love the Sabbath, The soapsuds and the starch, The troops of solemn people Who to Salvation march. I take my book, I take my stick On the Sabbath day, In woody nooks and valleys I hide myself away. To ponder there in quiet God's Universal Plan, Resolved that church and Sabbath Were never made for man.

  Robert Graves

  Book, Men, People

  Robert Graves, Beryl Graves, Dunstan Ward (1999). “Complete poems”, Carcanet Pr

  8 Copy quote

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