In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.
ROBERT GRAVESThe function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.
More Robert Graves Quotes
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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.
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There’s a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility.
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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.
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Poet, never chase the dream. Laugh yourself and turn away. Mask your hunger, let it seem Small matter if he come or stay; But when he nestles in your hand at last, Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.
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Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another; now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale.
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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.
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Marriage, like money, is still with us; and, like money, progressively devalued.
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Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
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If I were a girl, I’d despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.
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There is one story and one story only.
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As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned.
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I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against fate.
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A perfect poem is impossible. Once it had been written, the world would end. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
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For words of rapture groping, they”Never such love,” swore “ever before was!”
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Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.
ROBERT GRAVES