We are born poets. we become orators.

Rarest of the real poets are born poets. They are the oddballs, not the professors.

— James Broughton

There were poets before Homer.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

A good orator is pointed and impassioned.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Let arms yield to the toga, let the [victor's] laurel yield to the [orator's] tongue.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Orators are most vehement when they have the weakest cause, as men get on horseback when they cannot walk.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

Nothing in oratory is more important than to win for the orator the favour of his hearer, and to have the latter so affected…

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

There has never been a poet or orator who thought another better than himself.

— Marcus Tullius Cicero

What we really need the poet's and orator's I help to keep alive in us is not, then, the common and gregarious courage which…

— William James

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