Walt Whitman Quote

Exact science and its practical movements are no checks on the greatest poet, but always his encouragement and support... The sailor and traveller, the anatomist, chemist, astronomer, geologist, phrenologist, spiritualist, mathematician, historian and lexicographer are not poets, but they are the lawgivers of poets and their construction underlies the structure of every perfect poem.

Complete Prose Works (ed. 1891)