Poet Quotes - Page 22

• Poetry has become the higher algebra of metaphors.

  Jose Ortega y Gasset

  Poetry, Metaphor, Algebra

  5 Copy quote

• Time has nothing to do with the matter.

  Moliere

  Poetry, Effort, Criticism

  4 Copy quote

• One can be well-bred and write bad poetry

  Moliere

  Writing, Poetry, Criticism

  4 Copy quote

• If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see still upon the walls of the temple of Minerva the circular marks made by the shields taken from the enemy in the Persian war, which were suspended there. We have not far to seek for living and unquestionable evidence. The very dust takes shape and confirms some story which we had read.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wall, War, Taken

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.178, Xist Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no doubt that the loftiest written wisdom is either rhymed or in some way musically measured,--is, in form as well as substance, poetry; and a volume which should contain the condensed wisdom of mankind need not have one rhythmless line.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Poetry, Doubt, Needs

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.64, Xist Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some poems are for holidays only. They are polished and sweet, but it is the sweetness of sugar, and not such as toil gives to sour bread. The breath with which the poet utters his verse must be that by which he lives.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sweet, Integrity, Holiday

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.243, Xist Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our taste is too delicate and particular. It says nay to the poet's work, but never yea to his hope.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Poetry, Criticism, Taste

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.1056, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is the characteristic of great poems that they will yield of their sense in due proportion to the hasty and the deliberate reader. To the practical they will be common sense, and to the wise wisdom; as either the traveler may wet his lips, or an army may fill its water-casks at a full stream.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Wisdom, Army

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Illustrated "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"”, p.147, Princeton University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,--for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophy, Reading, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.64, Xist Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrounds it. Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Beauty, Expression, Poetry

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.279, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A true account of the actual is the rarest poetry, for common sense always takes a hasty and superficial view.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Views, Common Sense

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.245, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are two classes of men called poets. The one cultivates life, the other art,... one satisfies hunger, the other gratifies the palate.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Art, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.465, Modern Library

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It would be worth the while to select our reading, for books are the society we keep; to read only the serenely true; never statistics, nor fiction, nor news, nor reports, nor periodicals, but only great poems, and when they failed, read them again, or perchance write more. Instead of other sacrifice, we might offer up our perfect (teleia) thoughts to the gods daily, in hymns or psalms. For we should be at the helm at least once a day.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.83, Delphi Classics

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The poet's body even is not fed like other men's, but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of the gods, and lives adivine life. By the healthful and invigorating thrills of inspiration his life is preserved to a serene old age.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Men, Serenity

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.243, Xist Publishing

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and generalizes their widest deductions.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Poetry

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Henry David Thoreau (Illustrated)”, p.271, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Poetry is the mysticism of mankind.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Poetry, Mankind, Mysticism

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.77, BookBaby

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• What a contrast between the stern and desolate poetry of Ossian, and that of Chaucer, and even of Shakespeare and Milton, much more of Dryden, and Pope, and Gray! Our summer of English poetry, like the Greek and Latin before it, seems well advanced towards its fall, and laden with the fruit and foliage of the season, with bright autumnal tints, but soon the winter will scatter its myriad clustering and shading leaves, and leave only a few desolate and fibrous boughs to sustain the snow and rime, and creak in the blasts of age.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Summer, Latin, Fall

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.261, Xist Publishing

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Test of the poet is knowledge of love,
  For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove;
  Never was poet, of late or of yore,
  Who was not tremulous with love-lore.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Love, Poetry, Tests

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert J. Von Frank (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry”, p.227, Harvard University Press

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is not in the encyclopedia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body of Divinity, but in the sonnet or the play.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Play, Poetry, Body

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, David Mikics (2012). “The Annotated Emerson”, p.193, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, or spirit, or poetry,--a narrow belt.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Science, Poetry, May

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.480, Library of America

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• And of poetry, the success is not attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and fires us with new endeavours after the unattainable.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Fire, Poetry, Unattainable

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.83

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Great is the art,
  Great be the manners, of the bard.
  He shall not his brain encumber
  With the coil of rhythm and number;
  But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
  He shall aye climb
  For his rhyme.
  "Pass in, pass in," the angels say

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Art, Angel, Numbers

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.4360, Delphi Classics

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The rhyme of the poet
  Modulates the king's affairs.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Kings, Poetry, Politics

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Poems”, p.144, The Floating Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The charming landscape which I saw this morning is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Morning, Eye, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.36, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• To clothe the fiery thought
  In simple words succeeds,
  For still the craft of genius is
  To mask a king in weeds.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Weed, Kings, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1979). “Emerson's Literary Criticism”, p.85, U of Nebraska Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source