Foolish Quote by Karl Jaspers

I really wanted to be a poet - until I realized that I really didn't have what it took to be a poet.

— Celeste Ng

I believed that I wanted to be a poet, but deep down I wanted to be a poem.

— Jaime Gil de Biedma

It wasn't a deliberate decision to become a poet. It was something I found myself doing - and loving. Language became an addiction.

— Yusef Komunyakaa

And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often…

— Alexander McCall Smith

At college, I wanted to be a poet. I liked the extremely concentrated language, the atmosphere of otherworldliness.

— Walter Kirn

I thought originally when I was in school and I wanted to be a poet, I knew that poets seemed to be miserable.

— Billy Collins

I was pushing for a career in poetry and of course the received wisdom was that you would never make a living at it.

— John Cooper Clarke

To be a philosopher, just reverse everything you have ever been told...and have a sense of humor doing it.

— Criss Jami

I just realized, sometime early on in college, that I wanted to be a philosopher. I basically decided that I wanted to spend my…

— L.A. Paul

I wanted to be a poet and/or an artist, but I was very lazy (frightened of failure, I guess) and drank too much.

— Peter Blegvad

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to…

— Henry David Thoreau

I thought I was going to be a poet when I was in college, but then I found out I was poor so I…

— Josh Lieb