About this business of being a gentleman: I paid so heavily for the fourteen years of my gentleman’s education that I feel entitled, now and then, to get some sort of return.
ROBERT GRAVESI don’t really feel my poems are mine at all. I didn’t create them out of nothing. I owe them to my relations with other people.
More Robert Graves Quotes
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Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage Once more with pomp and greed and rage; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony.
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Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.
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I have done many impious things–no great ruler can do otherwise. I have put the good of the Empire before all human considerations. To keep the Empire free from factions I have had to commit many crimes.
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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.
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No honest theologian therefore can deny that his acceptance of Jesus as Christ logically binds every Christian to a belief in reincarnation – in Elias case (who was later John the Baptist) at least.
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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.
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To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
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Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark a shining space With the grave ‘s narrowness, though not its peace.
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The gas-cylinders had by this time been put into position on the front line. A special order came round imposing severe penalties on anyone who used any word but “accessory” in speaking of the gas. This was to keep it secret, but the French civilians knew all about the scheme long before this.
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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
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Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists; though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science.
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Patriotism, in the trenches, was too remote a sentiment, and at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisoners. A new arrival who talked patriotism would soon be told to cut it out.
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As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned.
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If I were a girl, I’d despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.
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Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark a shining space With the grave ‘s narrowness, though not its peace.
ROBERT GRAVES