José Martí on poetry

Liberty is the right of every man to be honest, to think and to speak without hypocrisy.

Mankind is composed of two sorts of men — those who love and create, and those who hate and destroy.

Man loves liberty, even if he does not know that he loves it. He is driven by it and flees from where it does not exist.

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