The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.
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
-
-
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.
ROBERT GRAVES -
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 -
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.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
ROBERT GRAVES -
The award of a pure gold medal for poetry would flatter the recipient unduly: no poem ever attains such carat purity.
ROBERT GRAVES -
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.
ROBERT GRAVES -
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 -
Love at first sight’some say misnaming Discovery of twinned helplessness Against the huge tug of procreation. But friendship at first sight? This also Catches fiercely at the surprised heart So that the cheek blanches then blushes.
ROBERT GRAVES -
This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Love at first sight’some say misnaming Discovery of twinned helplessness Against the huge tug of procreation. But friendship at first sight? This also Catches fiercely at the surprised heart So that the cheek blanches then blushes.
ROBERT GRAVES -
When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You’ll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.
ROBERT GRAVES -
We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark a shining space With the grave ‘s narrowness, though not its peace.
ROBERT GRAVES -
The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
ROBERT GRAVES