British Poet Quotes

There is practically no difference at all between a family and a nation, except the difference in size. A family is a nation seen through the wrong end of a telescope; a nation is a family seen through the right end of a telescope, and I don't believe it is possible to achieve a happy and successful family life, or a happy and successful national life, unless we bear this simple fact in mind and behave accordingly.

The name is history.
The thick Miljacka flows
Under its bridges through a canyon's breadth
Fretted with minarets and plump with domes,
Cupped in its mountains, caught on a drawn breath.

Too late I stayed,—forgive the crime!
Unheeded flew the hours;
How noiseless falls the foot of time
That only treads on flowers.

Under this stone, Reader, survey
Dead Sir John Vanbrugh's house of clay.
Lie heavy on him, Earth! for he
Laid many heavy loads on thee!

To be so closely caught up in the teeth of things that they kill you, no matter how infinitesimally kill you, is, truly, to be a poet: and to be a poet in fact it is additionally necessary that you should possess the tongues and instruments with which to record this series of infinitesimal deaths.

George Barker
George Barker
The purity is a question of
names. We are here to utter them. This is
a prayer. I have it now between my
teeth and my eyes, on my forehead. Know
the names. It is as simple as the purity
of sentiment: it is as simple
as that.

We would be strangers in the Capitol;
this is our country also, no-where else;
and we shall not be outcast on the world.

I saw the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The grey spires of Oxford
Against a pearl-grey sky;
My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.

Again the violet of our early days Drinks beauteous azure from the golden sun, And kindles into fragrance at his blaze.

Grief, I have cursed thee often — now at last
To hate thy name I am no longer free;
Caught in thy bony arms and prisoned fast,
I love no love but thee.

During this earlier period of his activity Voltaire seems to have been trying - half unconsciously, perhaps - to discover and to express the fundamental quality of his genius.

Lytton Strachey
Lytton Strachey
Walking about? With a hole in his forehead full of maggots" "Aye. It were like a damn fisherman's tub.

This is the divine moment when we can hold the fairest blossom of spring in one hand and the sweetest flowers of early summer in the other.

Forget. Memory is pain trying to resurrect itself.

What men have done can still be done
And shall be done today.

And o'er them the lighthouse looked lovely as hope,—
That star of life's tremulous ocean.

Cricket is an ancient pastime; it ripened sweetly, it has endured noblt.

Or to some coffee-house I stray
For news, the manna of a day.

What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!…
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!

I know that there is not in the world a more subtle poison than that which is extracted from and administered by books.

Charlotte Dacre
Charlotte Dacre
For years a secret shame destroyed my peace—
I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNeice.
But then I had a thought that brought me hope—
Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.

Who owns this landscape?
The millionaire who bought it or
the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning
with a deer on his back?

I've wandered east, I've wandered west,
Through mony a weary way;
But never, never can forget
The love o' life's young day!

William Motherwell
William Motherwell
What is the life of a man more than the life of a lamb, or any guiltless animal?

James Hogg
James Hogg
A female mind like a rude fallow lies;
No seed is sown, but weeds spontaneous rise.
As well might we expect, in winter, spring,
As land untilled a fruitful crop should bring.