Stephen Spender Quotes

28 quotes in 449 categories

• When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse, My mind a top whipped by the lashes…
• The greatest poets are those with memories so great that they extend beyond their strongest experiences to their minutest observations of people and things far…
• I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.
• I think continually of those who were truly great...Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, and left the vivid air…
• Paul Valery speaks of the 'une ligne donnee' of a poem. One line is given to the poet by God or by nature, the rest…
• Although Poets are vain and ambitious, their vanity and ambition are of the purest kind attainable in this world. They are ambitious to be accepted…
• There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife — a tyrannical midwife.
• The greatest of all human delusions is that there is a tangible goal, and not just direction towards an ideal aim. The idea that a…
• I think continually of those who were truly great.
• I think of those who were truly great. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the…
• So i learned both to accept myself and to aim beyond myself
• If Rilke cut himself shaving, he would bleed poetry.
• If you get to a certain age, all people want to know about you is people you knew. ...An American student once said to me,…
• History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.
• Memory exercised in a particular way is a natural gift of poetic genius. The poet above all else, is a person who never forgets certain…
• Religion stands, the Church blocking the sun.
• When I saw photographs of children murdered by the Fascist, I felt furious pity. When the supporters of Franco talked of Red atrocities, I merely…
• The only true hope for civilization-the conviction of the individual that his inner life can affect outward events and that, whether or not he does…
• Bright clasp of her whole hand around my finger My daughter as we walk together now. All my life I'll feel a ring invisibly Circle…
• When you read and understand a poem, comprehending its rich and formal meanings, then you master chaos a little.

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