I was last in Rome in AD 540 when it was full of Goths and their heavy horses. It has changed a great deal since then.
ROBERT GRAVESThis seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.
More Robert Graves Quotes
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The poet’s first rule must be never to bore his readers; and his best way of keeping this rule is never to bore himself-which, of course, means to write only when he has something urgent to say.
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Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes.
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The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.
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To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
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Well, we’ve been lucky devils both And there is no need for a pledge or oath To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff Close bound enough.
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This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes.
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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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I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horrors of sordid passion, and – if he is lucky enough – know the love of an honest woman.
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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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The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.
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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.
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For I now realize that what overcame me that evening was a sudden awareness of the power of intuition, the supra-logic that cuts out all routine processes of thought and leaps straight from problem to answer.
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The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.
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Myths are seldom simple, and never irresponsible.
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This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.
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Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher Swept off his tall hat to the Squire’s own daughter, So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly Singing about her head, as she rode by.
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Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.
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Profession, Condition, Poet, Wide, Beautiful, Impressive, Poetry, Effect, Saying, Result, Impress
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There is one story and one story only.
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Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart’s desire.
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We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.
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Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
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She told me that all the girls in Annezin prayed every night for the war to end and for the English to go away as soon as their money was spent. She said that the clause about the money was always repeated in case God should miss it.
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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.
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Every fairy child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild I’d love to be a Fairy’s child.
ROBERT GRAVES