Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on poetry

The heights by great men reached and kept, were not obtained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day. Their old, familiar carols play. And wild and sweet the words repeat. Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Robert Frost1874–1963

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

T. S. Eliot1888–1965“Philip Massinger”, a biographical essay, in The Sacred Wood (1920)

Poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963Reflections on the Psalms