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.
ROBERT GRAVESTo be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
More Robert Graves Quotes
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I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against fate
ROBERT GRAVES -
But give thanks, at least, that you still have Frost’s poems; and when you feel the need of solitude, retreat to the companionship of moon, water, hills and trees. Retreat, he reminds us, should not be confused with escape. And take these poems along for good luck!
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This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.
ROBERT GRAVES -
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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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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When I’m killed, don’t think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there’s one thing that I know well, I’m damned if I’ll be damned to Hell!
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Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
ROBERT GRAVES -
Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.
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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.
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 -
But give thanks, at least, that you still have Frost’s poems; and when you feel the need of solitude, retreat to the companionship of moon, water, hills and trees. Retreat, he reminds us, should not be confused with escape. And take these poems along for good luck!
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.
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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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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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In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.
ROBERT GRAVES