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 GRAVESThe 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.
More Robert Graves Quotes
-
-
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 -
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 -
I 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.
ROBERT GRAVES -
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 -
What we now call “finance” is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.
ROBERT GRAVES -
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 -
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 GRAVES -
The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Profession, Condition, Poet, Wide, Beautiful, Impressive, Poetry, Effect, Saying, Result, Impress
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 -
As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as I yours for ever.
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 -
New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.
ROBERT GRAVES -
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.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.
ROBERT GRAVES