Top 20 Poetry Quotations

Explore the meaning of poetry and the motivation of poets with this special collection of evocative quotations...

1. "A poet is someone who is astonished by everything."
   -- Anonymous

    

2. "Reality only reveals itself when it is illuminated by a ray of poetry."
   -- Georges Brague

    

3. "The poet doesn't invent. He listens. "
   --Jean Cocteau

    

4. " In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."
   -- Paul Dirac

    

5. " Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood."
   -- T. S. Eliot

    

6. "The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem."
   -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

    

7. " There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it."
   -- Gustave Flaubert

    

8. "A poem begins with a lump in the throat. "
   --Robert Frost

    

9. " Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement."
   -- Christopher Fry

    

10. " There's no money in poetry, but there's no poetry in money, either."
    -- Robert Ranke Graves

     

11. " Poetry is to hold judgment on your soul."
    -- Henrik Ibsen

     

12. " When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."
    -- John F. Kennedy

     

13. "Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind."
    --Thomas Babington Macaulay

     

14. "The poem is the point at which our strength gave out. "
    --Richard Rosen

     

15. " Science is for those who learn; poetry, for those who know."
    -- Joseph Roux

     

16. "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. "
    --Percy Byshe Shelley

     

17. "Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket. "
    --Charles Simic

     

18. "A poem is never finished, only abandoned. "
    --Paul Valéry

     

19. " Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls."
    -- Voltaire

     

20. "Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge."
    -- William Wordsworth