Poet Quotes

One Power alone makes a Poet: Imagination. The Divine Vision.

William Blake
In order to write poetry, you must first invent a poet who will write it.

Antonio Machado
- Poetry
- Poet

What poet would not grieve to see His brother write as well as he? But rather than they should excel, He'd wish his rivals all in Hell.

Jonathan Swift
- Wish
- Poet
- Grieve
Nobody has to tell nobody nothing,” I say, taking another step forward. “You never were a poet, were you, Todd?” he says.

Patrick Ness
- Poet
- Tell
- Nobody
Of course, a psychologist would find it more direct to study the inspired poet. He would make concrete studies of inspiration in individual geniuses. But for all that, would he experience the phenomena of inspiration? His human documentation gathered from inspired poets could hardly be related, except from the exterior, in an ideal of objective observations. Comparison of inspired poets would soon make us lose sight of inspiration.

Gaston Bachelard
Superstition is the poesy of practical life; hence, a poet is none the worse for being superstitious.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Life
- Poet
- Superstition
For the poets tell us, don't they, that the melodies they bring us are gathered from rills that run with honey, out of glens and gardens of the Muses, and they bring them as bees do honey, flying like the bees? And what they say is true, for a poet is a light and winged thing, and holy, and never able to compose until he has become inspired, and is beside himself, and reason is no longer in him. So long as he has this in his possession, no man is able to make poetry or to chant in prophecy.

Plato
- Poet
- Prophecy
- Muses
When a writer becomes a reader of his or her own work, a lot can go wrong. It's like do-it-yourself dentistry.

William Collins
- English
- Reader
- Becomes