Poet Quotes

Beauty awakens the soul to act.

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.

Poetry is a succession of questions which the poet constantly poses.

What is lovely never dies, put passes into other loveliness.

True art selects and paraphrases, but seldom gives a verbatim translation.

They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.

The ocean moans over dead men's bones.

The man who suspects his own tediousness is yet to be born.

Books that have become classics - books that have had their day and now get more praise than perusal - always remind me of retired colonels and majors and captains who, having reached the age limit, find themselves retired on half pay.

A man is known by the company his mind keeps.

To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent - that is to triumph over old age.

There must be such a thing as a child with average ability, but you can't find a parent who will admit that it is his child.

No bird has ever uttered note That was not in some first bird's throat; Since Eden's freshness and man's fall No rose has been original.

Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.

I like to have a thing suggested rather than told in full. When every detail is given, the mind rests satisfied, and the imagination loses the desire to use its own wings.

Wine is a peep-hole on a man.

'Tis said that wrath is the last thing in a man to grow old.

Not houses finely roofed or the stones of walls well builded, nay nor canals and dockyards make the city, but men able to use their opportunity.

To be bowed by grief is folly; Naught is gained by melancholy; Better than the pain of thinking, Is to steep the sense in drinking.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem too insignificant for our concern? Yet in my heart I never will deny her, Who suffered death because she chose to turn.

I should be proud to have my memory graced, but only if the monument be placed... here, where I endured three hundred hours in line before the implacable iron bars.

All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death's wing flashed ahead.

Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free.

It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.

This was Shakespeare's form; who walked in every path of human life, felt every passion; and to all mankind doth now, will ever, that experience yield which his own genius only could acquire.

The man forget not, though in rags he lies, and know the mortal through a crown's disguise.

Such and so various are the tastes of men.

Seeks painted trifles and fantastic toys, and eagerly pursues imaginary joys.

Even God cannot change the past.

It is best for the wise man not to seem wise.