Poet Quotes

I hope you find great value in these Quotes about Poet from my large collection of inspirational quotes and motivational sayings.

The poet is one who is able to keep
the fresh vision of the child alive.
- Anais Nin

Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet.
He must be a great original interpreter
of his time, his day, his age.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role,
is to try and express what we all feel.
Not to tell people how to feel.
Not as a preacher, not as a leader,
but as a reflection of us all.
- John Lennon

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

The poet ranks far below the painter
in the representation of visible things,
and far below the musician in that of invisible things.
- Leonardo da Vinci

Sucking the marrow out of life
doesn't mean choking on the bone.
- Robin Williams as John Keating
in the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society

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.
- Socrates

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Youth, large, lusty, loving -
Youth, full of grace, force, fascination.
Do you know that Old Age may come after you
with equal grace, force, fascination?
- Walt Whitman

The River of Life flows without emotion.
The River surges. The River quiets.
The River overflows its banks. The River dries to a trickle.
The River swirls and storms. The River becomes calm.
The River runs clear. The River runs dark with silt.
The River is indifferent to what benefit
or what harm is caused by its water.
The River is the River, and that is all there is to it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The River of Life has no judgments.
The River flows with no concept of good and bad - right and wrong.
The fields and dreams of men may be nourished by the River of Life,
or flooded and covered with silt, and the River just flows.
Men may catch fish and live on the River of Life,
or they may founder in a storm and drown, and the River just flows.
The River of Life is timeless.
It is not unchanging, but it is timeless,
and it changes in its own time.
The River of Life knows no obstacles.
The River can cut through solid rock - in its own time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The River of Life has no meaning, no good, no bad,
no better, no worse, no love, no hate, no fear, no anger, no joy.
The River of Life has no judgment, no expectation.
The River of Life just IS. There is nothing to do.
There is nothing to say.
There is nothing to think.
There is nothing to feel.
The River just flows. The River is the source of all nourishment -
the source of all obstacles.
The River is the source of all life - the source of all death.
The River is the source of all joy - and the source of all sorrow.
Yet the River has no joy - and the River has no sorrow.
The River is just the River.
One can flow harmoniously with the River -
or one can struggle fearfully against the River -
and the River just flows.
One can accept the River - or one can deny the River -
and the River just flows.
One can worship the River of Life - or one can curse the River of Life -
and the River just flows. There is nothing to do - and the River flows.
There is nothing to say - and the River flows.
There is nothing to think - and the River flows.
There is nothing to feel - and the River flows.
The River flows - and all else is our drama.
The River flows - and all else is our invention.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

I've always had a love for poetry,
and when I got signed to a record label I thought,
"How odd that I'm doing a record before a book of poetry."
- Jewel

On His Blindness:
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
- John Milton (1608-1674)

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.
- John F. Kennedy

Eroticism is one of the basic means of self-knowledge,
as indispensable as poetry.
- Anais Nin

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore

All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)

The full measure of a man is
not to be found in the man himself,
but in the colors and textures that
come alive in others because of him.
- Albert Schweitzer

The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.
The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.
- Lao Tzu

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

The wise man in the storm prays God,
not for safety from danger,
but for deliverance from fear.
It is the storm within which endangers him,
not the storm without.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was:
"If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
But... the good Samaritan reversed the question:
"If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

If a man can... make a better mousetrap,
the world will make a beaten path to his door.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man and woman is born into the world
to do something unique and something distinctive;
and if he or she does not do it,
it will never be done.
- Benjamin E. Mays

Is the babe young? When I behold it,
it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
- Henry David Thoreau

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe,
that lures him to evil ways.
- The Buddha

A wise man will make haste to forgive,
because he knows the true value of time,
and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
- Samuel Johnson

When I look back on all these worries,
I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed
that he had had a lot of trouble in his life,
most of which had never happened.
- Winston Churchill

The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.
- B. C. Forbes

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man,
but he is brave five minutes longer.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The wise man looks into space,
and does not regard the small as too little,
nor the great as too much;
for he knows that there is no limit to dimensions.
- Lao Tzu

The wise man looks back into the past,
and does not grieve over what is far off,
nor rejoice over what is near;
for he knows that time is without end.
- Lao Tzu

The man who goes alone can start today;
but he who travels with another
must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man.
Everything that exists has brought
with it its own peculiar lesson.
- Orison Swett Marden

Man must evolve for all human conflict,
a method which rejects
revenge, aggression and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Feel Unity with Spirit and All Creation
All things share the same breath the
beast, the tree, the man... the air
shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle [actually written by screenwriter Ted Perry in 1972]

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.
- Nelson Mandela

If there is anything that a man can do well,
I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
- Abraham Lincoln

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid
as getting to know how enormously much
he is capable of doing and becoming.
- Soren Kierkegaard

A man can fail many times,
but he isn't a failure until
he begins to blame somebody else.
- John Burroughs

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives
and not in what he is able to receive.
- Albert Einstein

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal
of plain living and high thinking
the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants.
Man's happiness really lies in contentment.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

A man is but the product of his thoughts -
what he thinks, he becomes.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance;
the wise grows it under his feet.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone
who can do him absolutely no good.
- Samuel Johnson

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me,
that man with all his noble qualities...
still bears in his bodily frame
the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
- Charles Darwin

There is a sufficiency in the world
for man's need but not for man's greed.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

When the tempest rages, when the thunders roar,
and the lightnings blaze around us
it is then that the truly brave man stands firm at his post.
- Luther Martin

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
- Naguib Mahfouz

There are other measures of self-respect for a man,
than the number of clean shirts he puts on every day.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head,
and knows not that it brings abundance
to drive away the hunger.
- Saint Basil

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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