Poetry Quotes

3367 quotes by 1649 authors

Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular. — Aristotle
Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of… — Aristotle
I guess I wanted to leave America for awhile. It wasn't that I wanted to become an expatriate, or just never come back, I needed… — Paul Auster
I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn't until I was about 30 that… — Paul Auster
I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of… — Paul Auster
If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem. — M H Abrams
Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things. — Matthew Arnold
I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places. — John Ashbery
But I liked Yeats! That wild Irishman. I really loved his love of language, his flow. His chaotic ideas seemed to me just the right… — Chinua Achebe
I don't think of poetry as a 'rational' activity but as an aural one. My poems usually begin with words or phrases which appeal more… — Margaret Atwood
The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one:… — Margaret Atwood
A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. — Wystan Hugh Auden
It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can… — Wystan Hugh Auden
A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become. — Wystan Hugh Auden
Before people complain of the obscurity of modern poetry, they should first examine their consciences and ask themselves with how many people and on how… — Wystan Hugh Auden
Every American poet feels that the whole responsibility for contemporary poetry has fallen upon his shoulders, that he is a literary aristocracy of one. — Wystan Hugh Auden
I gave up on new poetry myself 30 years ago when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in… — Russell Baker
Anticipating that most poetry will be worse than carrying heavy luggage through O'Hare Airport, the public, to its loss, reads very little of it. — Russell Baker
Love is the poetry of the senses. — Honore de Balzac
It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without stopping! On wine, on… — Charles Baudelaire

Who Wrote These Poetry Quotes

1,649 authors contributed a total of 3,367 Poetry Quotes, led by these top contributors: