No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.
ROBERT GRAVESNo 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.
More Robert Graves Quotes
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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.
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For words of rapture groping, they”Never such love,” swore “ever before was!”
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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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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.
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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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Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.
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This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet’s destiny is to love.
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The decline of true taste for food is the beginning of a decline in a national culture as a whole. When people have lost their authentic personal taste, they lose their personality and become the instruments of other people’s wills.
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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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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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In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.
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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.
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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.
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There is one story and one story only.
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You mean that people who continue virtuous in an old-fashioned way must inevitably suffer in times like these?
ROBERT GRAVES