Accurate Quote by Henry David Thoreau

What actually makes poetry poetry is of course impossible to define. We recognize it when we hear it, when we see it, but we…

— Robert Morgan

A definition of poetry can only determine what poetry should be and not what poetry actually was and is; otherwise the most concise formula…

— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

The importance of poetry is not measured, finally, by what the poet says but by how he says it.

— Mahmoud Darwish

I do not think [poetry] is more, or less, necessary than food, shelter, health, education, decent working conditions. It is as necessary.

— Adrienne Rich

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

— Voltaire

Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned.

— Emma Lazarus

Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.

— John Masefield

Poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many…

— Plato

All poetry is supposed to be instructive but in an unnoticeable manner; it is supposed to make us aware of what it would be…

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

It's not easy to define poetry.

— Bob Dylan

Poetry doesn't function by saying things straightforwardly because the language is too imprecise, too limited often, to address the underlying subject of most poems.

— Pattiann Rogers

In order for poetry to exist there has to be not-poetry to contrast it with.

— Elaine Equi