'Tis easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows along like a song, But the man worth while is the one who will smile, when everything goes dead wrong.

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

The dogs did bark, the children screamed, Up flew the windows all; And every soul bawled out, Well done! As loud as he could bawl.

With only half a lip you kiss, And half of that I ne'er' should miss, A greater boon of worth untold, Wilt grant me? That whole half withhold.

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.

With me poetry has not been a purpose but a passion.

All I saw farther in the last confusion, Was that King George slipped into heaven for one, And when the tumult dwindled to a calm, I left him practising the hundredth psalm.

Poetry has done enough when it charms but prose must also convince.

The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell is because he was a true poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it.

You may send poetry to the rich, to poor men give substantial presents

Clime of the unforgotten brave! Whose land from plain to mountain-cave, Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!

Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long, and the age of the great epics is past.

When power leads man toward arrogance poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts poetry cleanses.

A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

Why should poetry have to make sense?

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

I have met with most poetry on trunks, so that I am pat to consider the trunk-maker as the sexton of authorship.

Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.

We make out of the quarrel with others rhetoric but of the quarrel with ourselves poetry.

It is written on the arched sky, it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature, it is that which uplifts the spirit within us.

Painting is silent poetry and poetry is painting that speaks.

She walks in beauty like the night, Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright, Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

It's not easy to define poetry.

Love is the poetry of the senses.

The beauty the poetry of the fear in their eyes. I didn't mind going to jail for what five six hours? It was absolutely worth it.

The business of the poet is not to find new emotions but to use the ordinary ones and in working them up into poetry to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all.

For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.

Everything one invents is true you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

Hear the voice of the Bard! Who present past and future sees, Whose ears have heard The Holy Word, That walked among the ancient trees.

`Father O father! what do we here, In this land of unbelief and fear? The Land of Dreams is better far, Above the light of the morning star.

Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.

Poetry is something to make us wiser and better by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth which God has set in all men's souls.

Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry cannot have much respect for himself or for anything else.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact.

O Fame! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover, The thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

When it comes to atoms language can be used only as in poetry. The poet too is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images.

Humility is only doubt, And does the sun and moon blot out.

I don't think I've ever read poetry ever.

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.

Yet it is true poetry is delicious, the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

I tell thee be not rash, a golden bridge Is for a flying enemy.

I'm sorry man but I've got magic. I've got poetry in my fingertips. Most of the time - and this includes naps - I'm an F-18 bro. And I will destroy you in the air. I will deploy my ordinance to the ground.

But Shakespeare also says 'tis very silly / `To gild refined gold or paint the lily'.

O solitude where are the charms, That sages have seen in thy face? Better dwell in the midst of alarms, Than reign in this horrible place.

Poetry is as precise a thing as geometry.

Listen real poetry doesn't say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.

Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history since its statements are of nature of universals, whereas those of history are of singulars.

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive a thing which enters into one's soul and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject.

The sort of poetry I seek resides in objects man can't touch.

The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but one!

Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you.

Poetry may make us from time to time a little more aware of the deeper unnamed feelings which form the substratum of our being to which we rarely penetrate, for our lives are mostly a constant evasion of ourselves.

The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ, it contains both of them in a state of high development and epitomizes both.

Poetry is more philosophical and of higher value than history.

Though they did not kiss, Yet still between his Darkness and his Brightness, There passed a mutual glance of great politeness.

Rhyme that enslaved queen that supreme charm of our poetry that creator of our meter.

Alone all alone, Nobody but nobody, Can make it out here alone.

Pure mathematics is in its way the poetry of logical ideas.

And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

Poetry consists in a rhyming dictionary and things seen.

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.

Poetry is the opening and closing of a door leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.

Poetry should only occupy the idle.

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

There is another old poet, whose name I do not now remember, who said "Truth is the daughter of Time."

The Bible should be taught but emphatically not as reality. It is fiction myth poetry anything but reality. As such it needs to be taught because it underlies so much of our literature and our culture.

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off I know that is poetry.

I've written some poetry I don't understand myself.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere but putting it on paper is alas not so easy as looking at it.

The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amidst the wars of elements, The wrecks of matter and the crush of worlds.

All one's inventions are true you can be sure of that. Poetry is as exact a science as geometry.

Nobody I think ought to read poetry or look at pictures or statues who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.

Build today then strong and sure, With a firm and ample base, And ascending and secure. Shall tomorrow find its place.

I think that there is nothing not even crime more opposed to poetry to philosophy ay to life itself than this incessant business.

Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you, yield to him, though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

In the television age the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

If my poetry aims to achieve anything it's to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

The crown of literature is poetry.

As things are and as fundamentally they must always be poetry is not a career but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing.

My favourite poem is the one that starts 'Thirty days hath September' because it actually tells you something.

Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear! O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire!

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry prophecy and religion all in one.

Poetry fettered fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry painting and music are destroyed or flourish.

Adieu adieu! my native shore, Fades o'er the waters blue.

Wine is bottled poetry.

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance.

Superstition is the poetry of life.

Every now and then I read a poem that does touch something in me but I never turn to poetry for solace or pleasure in the way that I throw myself into prose.

The true spirit of delight the exaltation the sense of being more than Man which is the touchstone of the highest excellence is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

Poetry is all that is worth remembering in life.

All slang is metaphor and all metaphor is poetry.

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

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!

Wandering in many a coral grove / Fair Nine forsaking Poetry!

Come away O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

To see clearly is poetry prophecy and religion all in one.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry but a kind of instinct or inspiration such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough.

When at last we are sure, You've been properly pilled, Then a few paper forms, Must be properly filled. So that you and your heirs, May be properly billed.

Science arose from poetry... when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.

Man being reasonable must get drunk, The best of life is but intoxication, Glory the grape, love gold - in these are sunk - The hopes of all men and of every nation.