Creativity and Inspiration

We work in the dark—we do what we can—we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

My heart in hiding

Birds build—but not I build; no, but strain,

Rules and models destroy genius and art.

The writer’s only responsibility is to his art.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Great wits are sure to madness near allied.

What one man can invent another can discover.

The primary imagination I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM.

It’s my own invention. the White Knight

‘Genius’ (which means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all).

Stung by the splendour of a sudden thought.

I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions

Eureka! [I’ve got it!]

often. I want my feet to be bare, I want my face to be shaven, and my heart— you can’t plan on the heart, but the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

And I must borrow every changing shape To find expression.

There will be time to murder and create.

His self and the sun were one And his poems, although makings of his self, Were no less makings of the sun.

You think it horrible that lust and rage Should dance attention upon my old age; They were not such a plague when I was young; What else have I to spur me into song?

We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand; Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush, We are but critics, or but half create.