Poet Quotes

I know you—a glance, and what you are
Sits-by-the-fire in my heart.
My Limousine-Lady knows you, or
Why does the slant-envy of her eye mark
Your straight air and radiant inclusive smile?
Guilt pins a fig-leaf; Innocence is its own adoring.

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

It's true, the grave is more powerful than a lover's eyes. An open grave, with all its magnets. And I say this to you, you who when you smile make me think of the beginning of the world.

Vicente Huidobro

There's nothing in the world (that is in Trinity) To make us poets happy; — I detest Your Hebrew, Greek and heathenish Latinity, And Mathematics are a bore at best.

John Moultrie (poet)

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.

An albatross wheeling in circles, Sails with a wing to the clouds and a wing to the touch of the billow...

Sidney Royse Lysaght

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

Alas! Am I born for this,
To wear this slavish chain?
Deprived of all created bliss,
Through hardship, toil and pain!

George Moses Horton

As a favor to me
Let's not talk any more about old dances.
I have an entire world on the tip of my tongue.

Since the journey is a metaphor - the most ambiguous and seductive of metaphors, we tell ourselves - it can also be born of immobility. There is no need to drag our bodies around so much, all dressed up. It's hot, there are flies, diseases. It is enough to close our eyes, seated on a chair in the shade, to float on the waves of imagination. Isn't that what books are there for?

The first few glasses of beer were a revelation; they flushed my veins with happiness; they washed away all cares and shyness and worries. I remember thinking to myself, If I could have two pints of beer every afternoon, life would be a great happiness.

George Mackay Brown

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

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women, kitchen of love, bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. Sometimes, the men, they come with keys, and sometimes the men, they come with hammers.

Those two wholesome defects of the French people, malice and curiosity, both of which are essential to its greatness.

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

Man is born, eats, procreates, and dies This sequence of events alike applies To horses, herring, crocodiles, and flies.

Joseph Simon Newman