The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.
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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Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any relationship that seemed inconsistent with poetic principles; which has sometimes won me the reputation of an eccentric.
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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 GRAVES -
The decline of true taste for food is the beginning of a decline in a national culture as a whole. When people have lost their authentic personal taste, they lose their personality and become the instruments of other people’s wills.
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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 -
There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.
ROBERT GRAVES -
You mean that people who continue virtuous in an old-fashioned way must inevitably suffer in times like these?
ROBERT GRAVES -
Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.
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One smile relieves a heart that grieves.
ROBERT GRAVES -
For words of rapture groping, they”Never such love,” swore “ever before was!”
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But that so many scholars are barbarians does not much matter so long as a few of them are ready to help with their specialized knowledge the few independent thinkers, that is to say the poets, who try to to keep civilization alive.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.
ROBERT GRAVES -
This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.
ROBERT GRAVES -
A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Since the age of 15 poetry has been my ruling passion and I have never intentionally undertaken any task or formed any relationship that seemed inconsistent with poetic principles; which has sometimes won me the reputation of an eccentric.
ROBERT GRAVES -
He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits: This formula for drawing comic rabbits paid. Till in the end he could not change the tragic habits This formula for drawing comic rabbits made.
ROBERT GRAVES






