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Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

Robert Graves

If I were a young man With my bones full of marrow, Oh, if I were a bold young man Straight as an arrow, I’d store up no virtue For Heaven’s distant plain, I’d live at ease as I did please And sin once again.
ROBERT GRAVES

Arrow Concur Heaven Knowledge Literature Man Masterwork Men Power Writing
Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another; now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale.
ROBERT GRAVES

Bill Easy Family Life Marriage Men Precious Time Together Trust World
I was thinking, “So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I’ll be able to make people read my books now.
ROBERT GRAVES

Book Energy Innovation Mind People Positive Secrecy Solitude Soul Think Thinking
Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.
ROBERT GRAVES

Goodwill Intelligence Knowledge Mistake Patience
Poetry is no more a narcotic than a stimulant; it is a universal bittersweet mixture for all possible household emergencies and its action varies accordingly as it is taken in a wineglass or a tablespoon, inhaled, gargled or rubbed on the chest by hard fingers covered with rings.
ROBERT GRAVES

Emergency Mixture Narcotic Poetry Ring Universal
Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight
ROBERT GRAVES

Culture Dream Fight Hate Light Machine Men Passion Root Vision
She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow.
ROBERT GRAVES

Fall Flower Heaven Journey Life Luck Proud Sleep Spark Waiting
One smile relieves a heart that grieves.
ROBERT GRAVES

Crowd Desire Fire Goal Grieving Heart Hide Life Rise Street Want Won
There’s a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility.
ROBERT GRAVES

Change Flashback Happy Joy Life Moment Movement Sea Summer Weather Wind
To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
ROBERT GRAVES

Condition Poet Profession
The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.
ROBERT GRAVES

Excitement Experience Function Herself Horror Poetry Presence Religious
I revise the manuscript till I can’t read it any longer, then I get somebody to type it. Then I revise the typing. Then it’s retyped again. Then there’s a third typing, which is the final one. Nothing should then remain that offends the eye.
ROBERT GRAVES

Book Change Emotion Eyes Feeling Final God Manuscript Offend
Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight
ROBERT GRAVES

Culture Dream Fight Hate Light Machine Men Passion Root Vision
A well-chosen anthology is a complete dispensary of medicine for the more common mental disorders, and may be used as much for prevention as cure.
ROBERT GRAVES

Approve Health Knowing Knowledge May Medicine Real Science Scientific True
Hate is a fear, and fear is rot That cankers root and fruit alike, Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not, Strike with no madness when you strike.
ROBERT GRAVES

Fear Fruit Hate Madness Strike Yourself
Hardly one soldier in a hundred was inspired by religious feeling of even the crudest kind. It would have been difficult to remain religious in the trenches even if one had survived the irreligion of the training battalion at home.
ROBERT GRAVES

Home Religious Soldier Survive

Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

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Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

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Popular Authors

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