There were poets before Homer.

For even they who compose treatises of medicine or natural philosophy in verse are denominated Poets: yet Homer and Empedocles have nothing in common…

— Aristotle

It is not the poet's business to save man's soul but to make it worth saving . . . However, few poets have written…

— James Elroy Flecker

Poets who are not interested in music are, or become, bad poets.

— Ezra Pound

“Don’t let the bad times get you down, You have some of those moments where life tells you, it’s time to cry. Without those,…

— Tiffany McDaniel, On the Savage Side

Keelhaul the poets in the vestry chairs.

— Karl Shapiro

Knowledge and increase of enduring joy From the great Nature that exists in works Of mighty Poets.

— William Wordsworth

Neither men, nor gods, nor booksellers' shelves permit ordinary poets to exist. [Lat., Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae.]

— Horace

There were so many Pittsburgh poets in my hallway that if, at that instant, a meteorite had come smashing through my roof, there would…

— Michael Chabon

Most of the more celebrated names among African-American authors, poets, and artists are known to the world because of their association with specific cultural…

— Aberjhani

“[poems are] crystals deposited after the effervescent contact of the spirit with reality. (cristaux deposes apres l'effervescent contact de l'esprit avec la realite)”

— Pierre Reverdy

One of my favorite poets, Neruda, writes close to the bone. Though I know only a little Spanish, I like to compare the Spanish…

— Anita Diament

Defeat furnishes good material to the poets and the artists, but none of us care to have the glory of the conquered apply to…

— Susan Glaspell

We are born poets. we become orators.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Shelley and Keats were the last English poets who were at all up to date in their chemical knowledge.

— John B. S. Haldane

The poets have familiarized more people with history than have the historians.

— Barbara Tuchman