Poetry Quotes - Page 6

• Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

  Leonard Cohen

  Writing, Ashes, Burning

  "My favourite word in songwriting history is 'that'" by Laura Barton, www.theguardian.com. May 31, 2007.

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• Out of the ruined lodge and forgotten mansion, bowers that are trodden under foot, and pleasure-houses that are dust, the poet calls up a palingenesis.

  Thomas de Quincey

  Dust, Feet, House

  Thomas De Quincey (1853). “Essays on the Poets: And Other English Writers”, p.12, Boston, Ticknor, Reed, and Fields

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  Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

  Robert Frost

  Inspirational, Motivational, Happiness

  "The Road Not Taken" l. 16 (1916)

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• The poet is the priest of the invisible.

  Wallace Stevens

  Invisible, Priests, Poet

  Opus Posthumous (1957) "Adagia"

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• If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.

  Emily Dickinson

  Book, Fire, Reading Poetry

  Quoted in Martha Bianchi, Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson (1924)

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  But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.

  Robert Frost

  Love, Inspirational, Tattoo

  "Stopping byWoods on a Snowy Evening" l. 13 (1923)

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• Poetry is eternal graffiti written in the heart of everyone.

  Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Heart, Graffiti, Eternal

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• The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Funny, Food, Sarcasm

  "Alarms And Discursions". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1910.

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• ZENITH / NOON beats out / on its solar anvil / the rays of light

  Sonia Delaunay

  Light, Noon, Zenith

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  All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Inspirational, Life, Dream

  "A DreamWithin a Dream" l. 10 (1849)

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• A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.

  Dylan Thomas

  Art, Writing, Creativity

  Dylan Thomas, Daniel Jones (1992). “On the Air with Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts”, p.61, New Directions Publishing

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• First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me.

  Martin Niemoller

  Libertarian Party, Catholic, Liberty

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• If you do not answer the noise and urgency of your gifts, they will turn on you. Or drag you down with their immense sadness at being abandoned.

  Joy Harjo

  Sadness, Answers, Noise

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• One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.

  Billy Collins

  Self, Differences, Being Ignored

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• Love is the reduction of the universe to the single being, and the expansion of a single being, even to God

  Honore de Balzac

  Love, Expansion, Reduction

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• The earnings of a poet could be reckoned by a metaphysician rather than a bookkeeper.

  Edward Dahlberg

  Earning, Poet, Bookkeepers

  Edward Dahlberg (1967). “Alms for Oblivion”, p.61, U of Minnesota Press

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• To have great poets, there must be great audiences.

  Walt Whitman

  Learning, Science, Discovery

  Walt Whitman, Floyd Stovall (2007). “Prose Works 1892, Volume II: Collect and Other Prose”, p.521, NYU Press

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• Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Life, World, Capers

  A Defence of Poetry (written 1821) See Auden 22; Auden 39; Andrew Fletcher 1; Samuel Johnson 22; Twain 104

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• The poem is a little myth of man's capacity of making life meaningful.

  Robert Penn Warren

  Meaningful, Men, Littles

  1958 In the Saturday Review, 22 Mar.

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• Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Writing, Sunday, Clothes

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• Poetry is truth dwelling in beauty.

  Robert Gilfillan

  Dwelling, Poetry Is

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• My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

  John Lennon

  Hippie, Artist, Reflection

  John Lennon, Wulf Herzogenrath, Dorothée Hansen (1995). “John Lennon: drawings, performances, films”, Distributed Art Pub Inc

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• The crown of literature is poetry.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Hygiene, Crowns, Literature

  W. Somerset Maugham (2010). “Cakes And Ale”, p.90, Random House

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• The poetry of the earth is never dead.

  John Keats

  Inspirational, Life, Nature

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• Poetry is a language in which man explores his own amazement.

  Christopher Fry

  Men, Prose And Poetry, Language

  Christopher Fry (1997). “The Early Days”

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