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Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

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

Civilization Culture Follow Independent Long Obey Respect Said Tradition World
Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.
ROBERT GRAVES

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Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.
ROBERT GRAVES

Easy Family Funny Life Marriage Precious Time Together Trust Witty World
Myths are seldom simple, and never irresponsible.
ROBERT GRAVES
Never use the word ‘audience.’ The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don’t have an ‘audience’. They’re talking to a single person all the time.
ROBERT GRAVES

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Poetry is no more a narcotic than a stimulant; it is a universal bittersweet mixture for all possible household emergencies and its action varies accordingly as it is taken in a wineglass or a tablespoon, inhaled, gargled or rubbed on the chest by hard fingers covered with rings.
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The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
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Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.
ROBERT GRAVES

Easy Family Funny Life Marriage Precious Time Together Trust Witty World
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

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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.
ROBERT GRAVES

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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

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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.
ROBERT GRAVES

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The sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir Will celebrate with green the Mother, And every song-bird shout awhile for her; But we are gifted, even in November Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of Her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.
ROBERT GRAVES

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What we now call “finance” is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.
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Beginning Finance Hold Human Intellectual Love Myself Warm
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

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Let all the poison that lurks in the mud, hatch out.
ROBERT GRAVES

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Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

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Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

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