Poetry Quotes
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One learned gentleman, "a sage grave man," Talk'd of the Ghost in Hamlet, "sheath'd in steel"— His well-read friend, who next to speak began, Said, "That was poetry, and nothing real;" A third, of more extensive learning, ran To Sir George Villiers' Ghost, and Mrs. Veal; Of sheeted Spectres spoke with shorten'd breath, And thrice he quoted Drelincourt on Death.
Bill Vaughan
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Many people have complained that Imagined Communities is a difficult book and especially difficult to translate. The accusation is partly true. But a great deal of the difficulty lies not in the realm of ideas, but in its original polemical stance and its intended audience: the UK intelligentsia. This is why the book contains so many quotations from and allusions to, English poetry, essays, histories, legends, etc., that do not have to be explained to English readers, but which are likely to be unfamiliar to others.
Benedict Anderson
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I believe that poetry should communicate.
William Jay Smith
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Take the sweet poetry of life away, and what remains behind?
William Wordsworth
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If what distinguishes us from other species is speech, then poetry, which is the supreme linguistic operation, is our anthropological - indeed, genetic - goal.
Joseph Brodsky
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What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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To paraphrase Robin Williams’s compelling teacher character in Dead Poets Society: We don’t study poetry to get an “A,” to graduate, to get a job, to make money, to meet material needs. Rather, “we read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering . . . these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love . . . these are what we stay alive for.
Benjamin E. Sasse
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News isn't designed to talk about daily life in its nuances, but poetry is.
Eliza Griswold
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There is no merit in being truthful when one is truthful by nature, or rather when one can be nothing else; it is a gift, like poetry or music. But it needs courage to be truthful after carefully considering the matter, unless a kind of pride is involved; for example, the man who says to himself, "I am ugly," and then says, "I am ugly" to his friends, lest they should think themselves the first to make the discovery.
Eugene Delacroix
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Poetry makes people nervous. Especially in schools.
Sarah Kay
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Poetry interprets the chaos of human life and tries to bestow meaning on it. Without imagination there could be no poetry; and imagination chained by ideology produces only propaganda.
Amir Taheri
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I started with poetry because it was direct, immediate, and short. It was the ecstasy of striking matches in the dark.
Erica Jong
