Muse Quotes - Page 9

• This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.

  Steven Pressfield

  Real, Artist, Dedication

  Steven Pressfield (2002). “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles”, p.108, Black Irish Entertainment LLC

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• The lie, as a virtue, a principle, is eternal; the lie, as a recreation, a solace, a refuge in time of need, the fourth Grace, the tenth Muse, man's best and surest friend is immortal

  Mark Twain

  Lying, Men, Grace

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.2655, Delphi Classics

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• I look at you and you look at me and deep in our hearts know it That you weren't much of a muse, but then I weren't much of a poet

  Nick Cave

  Heart, Looks, Poet

  Song: There She Goes, My Beautiful World

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• For too many centuries women have been being muses to artists. I wanted to be the muse, I wanted to be the wife of the artist, but I was really trying to avoid the final issue — that I had to do the job myself.

  Anais Nin

  Jobs, Artist, Issues

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• The muse does not allow the praise-de-serving here to die: she enthrones him in the heavens.

  Horace

  Heaven, Doe, Praise

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• ...by and by a change came: I started to muse about the shape of my nose. I put my trivial surroundings aside and mused more and more about myself, and I found this to be a bewitching occupation. I stopped asking and longed instead to speak of my thoughts and feelings. Alas, there was no one besides myself who found me interesting.

  Tove Jansson

  Interesting, Feelings, Asking

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• O you, who in some pretty boat, Eager to listen, have been following Behind my ship, that singing sails along Turn back to look again upon your own shores; Tempt not the deep, lest unawares, In losing me, you yourselves might be lost. The sea I sail has never yet been passed; Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo, And Muses nine point out to me the Bears. You other few who have neck uplifted Betimes to the bread of angels upon Which one lives and does not grow sated, Well may you launch your vessel Upon the deep sea.

  Dante Alighieri

  Angel, Sea, Singing

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• As the falcon launched trustingly heavenward is lost to view, the course of the higher poetry often soars beyond the ken of the multitude; and, as the humble birds carol blithely round our dwellings, so the meeker lays of the muse linger tunefully about the heart.

  Henry Theodore Tuckerman

  Heart, Humble, Views

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• Pity! Religion has so seldom found
  A skilful guide into poetic ground!
  The flowers would spring where'er she deign'd to stray
  And every muse attend her in her way.

  William Cowper

  Spring, Flower, Religion

  William Cowper (1855). “The Complete Poetical Works of William Cowper: With Life, and Critical Notice of His Writings. Eight Engravings on Steel”, p.14

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• The Muses were dumb while Apollo lectured.

  Charles Lamb

  Silence, Dumb, Apollo

  Charles Lamb, Sir Thomas Noon TALFOURD (1849). “The Letters of Charles Lamb, with a sketch of his life. By T. N. Talfourd”, p.264

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• We should round every day of stirring action with an evening of thought. We learn nothing of our experience except we muse upon it.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Evening, Action, Should

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• Dan Reynolds isn't ashamed to admit he hears 'things' others cannot. It has haunted his every walking moment for years. He doesn't like to talk about it much, but the voices in his head have become his constant companion. And when his inner muse speaks, Reynolds is quick to take notes.

  David Dunn

  Years, Voice, Speak

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• I attempt to connect with my muse and go on demon rides.

  Keanu Reeves

  Goes On, Demon

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• Who loves not music and the heavenly muse, That man God hates.

  John Dowland

  Hate, Men, Heavenly

  1614 Commendatory poem to William Leighton's Teares or Lamentations of a Sorrowfull Soule.

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• When I was writing songs or performing or producing or dabbling in movies or even putting my career on hold to go to art school, I was just following my muse. A woman who did that then was criticized for having no direction. Today they call it versatility.

  Jackie DeShannon

  Song, Art, Writing

  Biography magazine, April 2002.

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• Education and study, and the favors of the muses, confer no greater benefit on those that seek them than these humanizing and civilizing lessons, which teach our natural qualities to submit to the limitations prescribed by reason, and to avoid the wildness of extremes.

  Plutarch

  Quality, Benefits, Lessons

  Plutarch (2015). “Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans: Top Biography”, p.292, 谷月社

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• No two on earth in all things can agree;
  All have some darling singularity;
  Women and men, as well as girls and boys,
  In gewgaws take delight, and sigh for toys,
  Your sceptres and your crowns, and such like things,
  Are but a better kind of toys for kings.
  In things indifferent reason bids us choose,
  Whether the whim's a monkey or a muse.

  Charles Churchill

  Girl, Kings, Boys

  Charles Churchill (1822). “The Poems of Charles Churchill”, p.95

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• Among all men on the earth bards have a share of honor and reverence, because the muse has taught them songs and loves the race of bards.

  Homer

  Music, Song, Men

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• Cicala to cicala is dear, and ant to ant, and hawks to hawks, but to me the muse and song.

  Theocritus

  Song, Hawks, Ants

  Theocritus (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Theocritus (Illustrated)”, p.60, Delphi Classics

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• Unemployed writers have muses. Employed writers just sweat.

  Lucille Kallen

  Sweat, Unemployed, Employed

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• Sweet the young muse with love intense,
  Which smiles o'er sleeping innocence.

  Christopher Smart

  Sweet, Sleep, Innocence

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• Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend,
  With whom my muse began, with who shall end.

  Alexander Pope

  Causes, Poet, Ends

  Alexander Pope, Valerie Rumbold (2007). “The Poems of Alexander Pope: The Dunciad (1728) & The Dunciad Variorum (1729)”, p.33, Pearson Education

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• Writing is a futile attempt to preserve what disappears moment by moment. All that remains of my mother is what I remember and what I have written for and about her. Eventually that is all that will remain of [my husband] and me. Writing sometimes feels frivolous and sometimes sacred, but memory is one of my strongest muses. I serve her with my words. So long as people read, those we love survive however evanescently. As do we writers, saying with our life's work, Remember. Remember us. Remember me.

  Marge Piercy

  Mother, Memories, Husband

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• Everyone has left me
  except my muse,
  that good nurse.
  She stays in my hand,
  a mild white mouse.

  Anne Sexton

  Inspirational, Hands, White

  Anne Sexton, Diane Wood Middlebrook, Diana Hume George (2000). “Selected Poems of Anne Sexton”, p.75, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• But words came halting forth, wanting Invention's stay;
  
  Invention, Nature's child, fled stepdame Study's blows;
  
  And others' feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
  
  Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
  
  Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
  
  "Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.

  Philip Sidney

  Children, Writing, Heart

  'Astrophel and Stella' (1591) sonnet 1

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