Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about poetry

150 quotes from 90 people

Most readBy personPage 2 of 10

We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.
Niels Bohr1885–1962In his first meeting with Werner Heisenberg in early summer 1920, in response to questions on the nature of language, as reported in Discussions about Language (1933); quoted in Defense Implications of International Indeterminacy (1972) by Robert J. …
- Science
Poetry always remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.
Jorge Luis Borges1899–1986“The Divine Comedy”, lecture (1977), in Seven Nights (1980)
God is the perfect poet,
Who in his person acts his own creations.
Robert Browning1812–1889Paracelsus (1835), Part 2.
- God
Poetry is like time travel, and poems take us to the heart of the matter.
Queen Camillaborn 1947First World War centenary: the war poem that moves the Duchess of Cornwall to tears The Daily Telegraph (28 June 2014)
There is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man; also, it may be said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881Sir Walter Scott (1838)
A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.
Thomas Carlyle1795–1881Burns (1828).
- Love
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter IIn context
- Comedy
Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas⁠—only I don’t exactly know what they are!
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter IIn context
- Ideas
‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes⁠—and ships⁠—and sealing-wax⁠—
Of cabbages⁠—and kings⁠—
And why the sea is boiling hot⁠—
And whether pigs have wings.’
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter IVIn context
- Talking
Ever drifting down the stream⁠—
Lingering in the golden gleam⁠—
Life, what is it but a dream?
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Through the Looking-Glass (1871), Chapter XIIIn context
- Life & Death
If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.
Rachel Carson1907–1964Acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction (1952)
- Writing
The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936‘Cheese,’ p. 70
The central idea of poetry is the idea of guessing right, like a child.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936The Victorian Age in Literature (1913), Ch I: The Victorian Compromise and Its Enemies (p. 24)
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
Jean Cocteau1889–1963A Call to Order (1926)