Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. John Keats on poetry
We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry. William Butler Yeats on poetry
Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! Lord Byron on poetry
It is written on the arched sky it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature it is that which uplifts the spirit within us. John Ruskin on poetry
A man of eighty has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress. Lord Byron on poetry
The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world... to see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one. John Ruskin on poetry
It is the hour to be drunken! to escape being the martyred slaves of time, be ceaselessly drunk. On wine, on poetry, or on virtue, as you wish. Charles Baudelaire on poetry
We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry. Maria Montessori on poetry
It's bad poetry executed by people that can't sing. That's my definition of Rap. Peter Steele on poetry
The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual. John Muir on poetry
Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls. James Russell Lowell on poetry
Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private. Allen Ginsberg on poetry
Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare - and precious as a pearl. Tahar Ben Jelloun on poetry
Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness. Nathaniel Hawthorne on poetry
I've written some poetry I don't understand myself. Carl Sandburg on poetry
We read Robert Browning's poetry. Here we needed no guidance from the professor: the poems themselves were enough. Carl Sandburg on poetry
When I was writing pretty poor poetry, this girl with midnight black hair told me to go on. Carl Sandburg on poetry
Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. Carl Sandburg on poetry
Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious the best prose is that which is most full of poetry. Virginia Woolf on poetry
Write verse, not poetry. The public wants verse. If you have a talent for poetry, then don't by any means mother it, but try your hand at verse. Robert W. Service on poetry