Poet Quotes

By the power of eloquence old truth receives a new habit; though its essence be the same, yet its visage is so altered that it may currently pass and be accepted as a novelty.

Michael Wigglesworth

Is it for miracles
We live? I like it when the morning sun lights up my room Like a yellow jelly bean, an inner glow. May mutters: "Why ask questions?" or, "What are the questions you wish to ask?"

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

I first saw the light on the 5th of August, 1860, I was born in Lee Street, Wharf Street, Leicester. The deformity which I am now exhibiting was caused by my mother being frightened by an Elephant; my mother was going along the street when a procession of Animals were passing by, there was a terrible crush of people to see them, and unfortunately she was pushed under the Elephant's feet, which frightened her very much; this occurring during a time of pregnancy was the cause of my deformity.

Oh I'm in love with the janitor's boy,
And the janitor's boy loves me;
He's going to hunt for a desert isle
In our geography.

When in public poetry should take off its clothes and wave to the nearest person in sight; it should be seen in the company of thieves and lovers rather than that of journalists and publishers.

'Qui procul hinc', the legend's writ,—
The frontier-grave is far away—
'Qui ante diem periit:
Sed miles, sed pro patria.'

Solace of the night sky,
the hardly moving
face of the clock.

Nowadays this is the way everyone loves himself; people wish to live with God in consolations and repose, in wealth and power, and to share the fruition of his glory. We all indeed wish to be God with God, but God knows there are few of us who want to live as men with his Humanity, or want to carry his cross with him, or want to hang on the cross with him and pay humanity's debt to the full.

Far as distress the soul can wound
'Tis pain in each degree;
Bliss goes but to a certain bound,
Beyond is agony.

Frances Greville

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

Pity for him who one day looks upon
his inward sphinx and questions it. He is lost.

It is easy to be humble when a greater is preferred; but when an inferior is lifted high above our heads, how can we bear it?

Constance Fenimore Woolson

Oh, a wondrous bird is the pelican!
His beak holds more than his belican.
He takes in his beak
Enough food for a week.
But I'll be darned if I know how the helican.

Dixon Lanier Merritt

We have, each of us, nothing.
We will give it to each other.

Carolyn Forché

In loss itself I find assuagement: having lost the treasure, I've nothing to fear.

Juana Inés de la Cruz

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

Paul Moon James

When I had curls
I knew more girls.
I do more reading
Now my hair is receding.

James Simmons (poet)

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

Rain knows the earth and loves it well, for rain is the passion of the earth.

Estela Portillo-Trambley

Is it not easy to conceive the World in your Mind? To think the Heavens fair? The Sun Glorious? The Earth fruitful? The Air Pleasant? The Sea Profitable? And the Giver bountiful? Yet these are the things which it is difficult to retain. For could we always be sensible of their use and value, we should be always delighted with their wealth and glory.

Thomas Traherne

The sweetest pleasures soonest cloy, And its best flavour temperance gives to joy.

I seem to lose words like another person loses blood. Everyday, every day there's something gone. It leaks everywhere.

I know I could enchain him with a smile:
And lead him captive with a gentle word,
I scorn my look should ever man beguile,
Or other speech, than meaning to afford.

Elizabeth Tanfield Cary

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