Stephen Spender Quotes
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A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness... The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration... a focusing of the attention in a special way.
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Deep in the winter plain, two armies Dig their machinery, to destroy each other. Men freeze and hunger. No one is given leave On either side, except the dead, and wounded.
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Never allow gradually the traffic to smother with noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.
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Never being, but always at the edge of Being.
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I think continually of those who were truly great...Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, and left the vivid air signed with their honor.
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Paint here no draped despairs, no saddening clouds, Where the soul rests, proclaims eternity. But let the wrong cry out as raw as wounds, This Time forgets and never heals, far less transcends.
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Sometimes when I am writing, I am aware of a rhythm, a dance, a fury, which is as yet empty of words.
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No one Shall hunger: Man shall spend equally. Our goal which we compel: Man shall be man.
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All that you can imagine you already know.
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History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.
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What is precious is never to forget, The delight of the blood drawn from ancient springs, Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth; Never to deny its pleasure in the simple morning light, Nor its grave evening demand for love; Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother, With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.
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There is a certain justice in criticism.
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Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.
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I think of those who were truly great. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.