Quotes About Poetry

79 quotes

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

— The Prophet

US-British poet

April is the cruelest month, breedinglilacs out of the dead land, mixingmemory and desire, stirringdull roots with spring rain.

— The Waste Land

American writer and literary critic

I would define, in brief, the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of beauty.

— The Poetic Principle

Chilean poet and politician

I am no longer in love with her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

— Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

English poet and civil servant

Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.

— The Complete Poetry

Irish poet and playwright

Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild / With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

— The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

Roman poet (1st century BC)

The gates of hell are open night and day; Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: But to return, and view the cheerful skies, In this the task and mighty labor lies.

— The Aeneid

Persian mathematician and poet

A book of verses underneath the boughA flask of wine, a loaf of bread and thou / Beside me singing in the wilderness / And wilderness is paradise now.

— Edward Fitzgerald's The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

American singer and poet; lead vocalist of The Doors

There are things known and there are things unknownand in between are the doors.

— Letters from Joe

German poet, writer and literary critic

First, I thought, almost despairing, This must crush my spirit now; Yet I bore it, and am bearing-Only do not ask me how.

English playwright and poet

All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

— Shakespeare's Sonnets

English modernist writer

Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?

— Orlando

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.

— The Prophet

US-British poet

Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future / And time future contained in time past.

— Four Quartets

Chilean poet and politician

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

— 100 Love Sonnets

English poet and civil servant

Our state cannot be severed, we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.

— Paradise Lost

Irish poet and playwright

I bring you with reverent hands / The books of my numberless dreams.

— The Wind Among the Reeds

American writer and literary critic

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; — vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore.

— The Complete Stories and Poems

German poet, writer and literary critic

A pine tree standeth lonely / In the North on an upland bare; It standeth whitely shrouded / With snow, and sleepeth there. It dreameth of a Palm tree / Which far in the East alone, In the mournful silence standethOn its ridge of burning stone.

English playwright and poet

I take thee at thy word: Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

— Romeo and Juliet

English modernist writer

Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces.

— Orlando

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, asthe mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

— The Prophet

Chilean poet and politician

By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two together in their sleep will defeat the darkness

— 100 Love Sonnets

English poet and civil servant

Where the bright seraphim in burning row / Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow.

— The Complete Poetry