Poet Quotes

The children eat and wriggle and laugh,
The two old ladies stroke their silk;
But the cat is grown small and thin with desire,
Transformed to a creeping lust for milk.

Ye generous maids, revenge your sex's wrong; Let not the mean destroyer e'er approach Your sacred charms. Now muster all your pride, Contempt and scorn, that, shot from Beauty's eye, Confounds the mighty impudent, and smites The front unknown to shame.

How many have died without having given even one kiss to their chimera!

Théophile Gautier

When the voice of Christ speaks through the Word, then you will arise, and leave all, and follow Him.

Robert Murray M'Cheyne

The last cobwebs
of fog in the
black firtrees are flakes
of white ash in the world's hearth.

Denise Levertov

Even so the Blood (bred of good nourishment) By divers Pipes to all the body sent, Turns here to Bones there changes into Nerves; Here is made Marrow, there for Muscles serves.

Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas

So some unlucky Engineer Does all the fit Materials compound, That are in Art or Nature found; Will glorious Fire-Works prepare.

The within is ceaselessly becoming the without. From the state of a man's heart doth proceed the conditions of his life; his thoughts blossom into deeds, and his deeds bear the fruitage of character and destiny.

For ivy climbs the crumbling hall To decorate decay.

Philip James Bailey

Or like a poet woo the Moon,
Riding an armchair for my steed,
And with a flashing pen harpoon
Terrific metaphors of speed.

The more uniform a man's voice, step, manner of conversation, handwriting--the more quiet, uniform, settled, his actions, his character.

Johann Kaspar Lavater

In principle, should the laborers have the produce of their labor? I do not hesitate to say: No! although I know that a multitude of workers will cry out. Look, proletarians, cry out, shout as much as you like, but then listen to me: No, it is not the product of their labors to which the workers have a right. It is the satisfaction of their needs, whatever the nature of those needs. To have the possession of the product of our labor is not to have possession of that which is proper to us, it is to have property in a product made by our hands, and which could be proper to others and not to us. And isn't all property theft?

Joseph Déjacque

Poetry is the vision in a man's soul which he translates as best he can with all the means at his disposal.

It has the original mouth but remains wordless;
It is surrounded by a magnificent mound of hair.
Sentient beings can get completely lost in it
But it is also the birthplace of all the Buddhas of the ten thousand worlds.

Let man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is.

The wild geese—the wild geese,—'tis long since they flew,
O'er the billowy ocean's bright bosom of blue.

Michael Joseph Barry

Art is interested in life at the moment when the ray of power is passing through it.

Boris Pasternak

Near to Bootes the bright Crown is view'd And shines with stars of different magnitude: Or placed in front above the rest displays A vigorous light, and dwarfs surprising rays. This shone, since Theseus first his faith betray'd, The monument of the forsaken maid.

Marcus Manilius

There are fools who seek to understand the secrets of nature.

Yet this is the watch by night.
Let us all accept new strength, and
real tenderness. And at dawn, armed
with glowing patience, we will enter
the cities of glory.

I do not write for the public. You are my public and I hope to convert you.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Whoever he was who first depicted Amor as a boy, don't you think it was a wonderful touch? He was the first to see that lovers live without sense.

This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know, that the soul exists, and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness.

I speak to you in one tongue/ but every moment that ever mattered to me/ occurred in another language.

Thou that swing'st upon the waving haire Of some well-filled Oaten Beard, Drunke ev'ry night with a Delicious teare, Dropt thee from Heav'n, where now th'art! The joys of Earth and Ayre are thine intire, That with thy feet and wings dost hop and flye; And when thy Poppy workes, thou dost retire To thy carv'd Acorn-bed to lye.

Richard Lovelace