There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.
Poetry Quotes
A poem should not mean, But be.
Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over my thoughts, because, if a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to act… The seat of this sensation is the pit of the stomach.
Thomson had a true poetical genius, the power of viewing every thing in a poetical light. His fault is such a cloud of words sometimes, that the sense can hardly peep through. Shiels, who compiled ‘Cibber’s Lives of the Poets,’ was one day sitting with me. I took down Thomson, and read aloud a large […]
Sad is the lot, who, once at least in his life, had not been a poet.
Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even can enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.
I could no more define poetry than a terrier can define a rat.
You must have a certain amount of maturity to be a poet. Seldom do sixteen-year-olds know themselves well enough.
Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry; on the other hand, poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose.
Do not ever read books about versification: no poet ever learnt it that way. If you are going to be a poet, it will come to you naturally and you will pick up all you need from reading poetry.
