Poets, the first instructors of mankind, Brought all things to the proper native use.

The earnings of a poet could be reckoned by a metaphysician rather than a bookkeeper.

The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.

...the poet, while creating anew, is likely to be in a sense restoring something old.

I'm all in favor of poets telling about the process as much as they can. And many do.

The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.

He says his aim is poetry. One does not aim at poetry with pistols. At poets, perhaps.

As fire kindled by fire, so is the poet's mind kindled by contact with a brother poet.

Words become luminous when the poet's finger has passed over them its phosphorescence.

language can't be appropriated by one person, one poet. The words belong to all of us.

Just because a poet said something didn’t mean it was true, only that it sounded good.

...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.

The eye of the poet sees less clearly, but sees farther than the eye of the scientist.

The exact day I became a poet was April 1, 1965, the day I bought my first typewriter.

Every poem, formal or free, has an ideal shape, and the job of the poet is to find it.

The sensual man conforms thoughts to things; the poet conforms things to his thoughts.

Multitude, solitude: equal and interchangeable terms for the active and prolific poet.

Children can write poetry and then, unless they're poets, they stop when reach puberty.

Treat your audience like poets and geniuses and they’ll have the chance to become them.

Advice to Young Poets Never pretend to be a unicorn by sticking a plunger on your head.

When the poet makes his perfect selection of a word, he is endowing the word with life.

The poets down here don't write nothin' at all, they just stand back and let it all be.

I defer to all these other American poets who, for some reason, I both envy and admire.

A poet may be a good companion, but, so far as I know, he is ever the worst of fathers.

I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.

Great Poets discover themselves. Little Poets have to be 'discovered' by somebody else.

For the godly poet must be chaste himself, but there is no need for his verses to be so.

No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.

One of my secret instructions to myself as a poet is "Whatever you do, don't be boring."

The words are the mirror of a poet. Through which you can see the reflection of himself.

I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.

Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme, Happy to catch me, just at dinner-time.

Dulness! whose good old cause I yet defend, With whom my muse began, with who shall end.

The challenge is to keep up with all the new poets at the same time I love the old ones.

Golf is to me what his Sabine farm was to the poet Horace - a solace and an inspiration.

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.

Nobody really knows whether they are a poet. I knew I was interested from the age of 15.

To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.

I would rather be a swineherd, understood by the swine, than a poet misunderstood by men.

In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.

Sweetheart, when you break thru you'll find a poet here, not quite what one would choose.

For me, a poet is someone who is 'in contact.' Someone through whom a current is passing.

For a man to become a poet (witness Petrarch and Dante), he must be in love, or miserable.

Love isn't soft, like the poets say. Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close.

In the hands of a great poet, words have ways of affecting us in ways we don't understand.

How do you define a poet? It's very simple. Anyone declaring that he is a poet, is a poet.

Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.

The man is either mad or his is making verses. [Lat., Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit.]

We ask the poet: 'What subject have you chosen?' instead of: 'What subject has chosen you?

Share This Page