Top 20 Poetry Quotations
by Danielle Hollister
Explore the meaning of poetry and the motivation of poets with this special collection of evocative quotations...
- "A poet is someone who is astonished by everything."
-- Anonymous
- "Reality only reveals itself when it is illuminated by a ray of poetry."
-- Georges Brague
- "The poet doesn't invent. He listens. "
--Jean Cocteau
- " 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
- " Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood."
-- T. S. Eliot
- "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
- " There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it."
-- Gustave Flaubert
- "A poem begins with a lump in the throat. "
--Robert Frost
- " Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement."
-- Christopher Fry
- " There's no money in poetry, but there's no poetry in money, either."
-- Robert Ranke Graves
- " Poetry is to hold judgment on your soul."
-- Henrik Ibsen
- " 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
- "Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind."
--Thomas Babington Macaulay
- "The poem is the point at which our strength gave out. "
--Richard Rosen
- " Science is for those who learn; poetry, for those who know."
-- Joseph Roux
- "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. "
--Percy Byshe Shelley
- "Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket. "
--Charles Simic
- "A poem is never finished, only abandoned. "
--Paul Valéry
- " Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls."
-- Voltaire
- "Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge."
-- William Wordsworth