Poet Quotes · Page 32

Don't ask a poet to explain himself. He cannot.

— Plato

All poetry, as discriminated from the various paradigms of prosody, is prayer.

— Samuel Beckett

O woman! thou wert fashioned to beguile: So have all sages said, all poets sung.

— Jean Ingelow

A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Traces alone engender dreams.

— Rene Char

“Dance is the timeless interpretation of life.”

— Shah Asad Rizvi

Being a poet is one of the unhealthier jobs--no regular hours, so many temptations!

— Elizabeth Bishop

“We aren't so called black people. We are black people. Be black and proud!”

— Dr.Nana Adu-Boafo Jnr

In my opinion, Al Moritz may be the best poet of his generation in Canada.

— George Murray

The antagonism between the poet and the politician has generally been evident in all cultures.

— Salvatore Quasimodo

A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating.

— Oscar Wilde

Never was flattery lost on a poet's ear; a simple race, they waste their toil for the vain tribute of a smile.

— Walter Scott

I've always tried to be a poet more than anything else. I mean, professional musicians die.

— Cecil Taylor

Next, suddenly, lightning suddenly, while I am still a child, a branch is lopped from my being, and a portion of my…

— Hal Porter

How does the poet transform his banal thoughts (are not most thoughts banal?) into such stunning forms, into beauty?

— Joyce Carol Oates

Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

You are the song of every bird, you are the poet's every word, every artist's picture, every writer's play.

— Dolly Parton

Now that I have written many words, and let out so many loves, for so many, and been altogether what I always…

— Anne Sexton

I do not suppose that anyone not a poet can realize the agony of creating a poem. Every nerve, even every muscle,…

— Amy Lowell

We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates. We read the quotation…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

The prostitute is the scapegoat for everyone's sins, and few people care whether she is justly treated or not. Good people have…

— Alison Roberta Noble Neilans

I wanted to learn Latin and Greek and become a poet and acquire power over language. I only understand this clearly in…

— Tony Harrison

My advice to aspiring poets is to find a community of other poets who are willing to read one another's work. And…

— Lucia Perillo

O brave poets, keep back nothing; Nor mix falsehood with the whole! Look up Godward! speak the truth in Worthy song from…

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To…

— Aldo Leopold

Old empires always appeal to modern poets more than new ones.

— Dana Gioia

The great philosophers are poets who believe in the reality of their poems.

— Antonio Machado

Iambics march from short to long;-- With a leap and a bound the swift Anapaests throng

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Treat your audience like poets and geniuses and they’ll have the chance to become them.

— Del Close

“Give contemporary POET more SPACE & a long-last MAGIC will surround you all again.”

— sir kristian goldmund aumann

Great Poets discover themselves. Little Poets have to be 'discovered' by somebody else.

— Marie Corelli

“Poet appointed dare not decline to walk among the bogus...”

— Basil Bunting

He says his aim is poetry. One does not aim at poetry with pistols. At poets, perhaps.

— Tom Stoppard

Poets go through a very tough apprenticeship in the use of words.

— Helen Dunmore

Black Poets should live--not leap From steel bridges, like the white boys do.

— Etheridge Knight

All the poet can do today is warn. That is why true Poets must be truthful.

— Wilfred Owen

Coleridge: poet and philosopher wrecked in a mist of opium.

— Matthew Arnold

Multitude, solitude: equal and interchangeable terms for the active and prolific poet.

— Charles Baudelaire

Poetry is a succession of questions which the poet constantly poses.

— Vicente Aleixandre

Dan Gerber is one of our finest living poets.

— Annie Dillard

the poet like an acrobat climbs on rime to a high wire of his own making.

— Lawrence Ferlinghetti