Literature and Words

THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF DISLIKING POETRY, ONE WAY IS TO DISLIKE IT, THE OTHER IS TO READ POPE.

Authorship of any sort is a fantastic indulgence of the ego.

A noble metaphor, when it is placed to an advantage, casts a kind of glory around it, and darts a luster through a whole sentence.

A poem is less a thing than any other work of art.

A writer is a reader moved to emulation.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

The use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life.

Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark, when high and learned ones do only pierce the air.

It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.

Fiction is nothing less than the subtlest instrument for self-examination and self-display that mankind has invented yet.

Eloquence lies as much in the tone of the voice, in the eyes, and in the speaker’s manner, as in his choice of words.

Eloquence may set fire to reason.

Fiction is Truth’s elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till somebody had told a story.

He who does not know foreign languages does not know anything about his own.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words.

Every word is a prejudice.

All good things are powerful stimulants to life, even a good book written against life.

Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.

We talk so abstractly about poetry because all of us are usually bad poets.

Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everything in every possible way.

And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long That on the stretched forefinger of all Time Sparkle forever.

 

Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.