Robert Graves Quotes

79 quotes in 1342 categories

• Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a start, he has…
• I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel…
• We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.
• A remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
• Marriage is a contradiction in terms of endearment.
• Why do men so eagerly take the leash of marriage into their mouths as if it was going to be just a walk in the…
• If there's no money in poetry, neither is there poetry in money. In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.
• Like Olympic medals and tennis trophies, all they signified was that the owner had done something of no benefit to anyone more capably than everyone…
• War was return of earth to ugly earth, War was foundering of sublimities, Extinction of each happy art and faith By which the world had…
• Please fix. This quote is actually by Robert Graves. (Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10122/pg10122.txt) When I sound the fairy call, gather here in silent meeting, Chin to knee…
• A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end.
• Entrance and exit wounds aresilvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood. The one-armed man…
• Her image was my ensign: snows melted, Hedges sprouted, the moon tenderly shone, The owls trilled with tongues of nightingale.
• Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girls Married impossible men? Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out, And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.
• And love went by upon the wind As though it had not been.

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