Poetry Quotes — Page 32

Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“The poet uses the results of science and philosophy, and generalizes their widest deductions.”

Philosophy Philosophical Poetry

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“A true poem is distinguished not so much by a felicitous expression, or any thought it suggests, as by the atmosphere which surrounds it. Most have beauty of outline merely, and are striking as the form and bearing of a stranger; but true verses come toward us indistinctly, as the very breath of all friendliness, and envelop us in their spirit and fragrance.”

Expression Beauty Poetry

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“Much of our poetry has the very best manners, but no character.”

Character Style

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“As long as there is satire, the poet is, as it were, particeps criminis.”

Long Poetry

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“We are all of us Apollos serving some Admetus.”

Poetry Poet Labor

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“Our taste is too delicate and particular. It says nay to the poet's work, but never yea to his hope.”

Criticism Taste Poetry

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are paid for being something less than a man. The state does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe.”

Men Wine Poetry

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out of it. I have altogether too much patience of this kind.”

Too Much Disappointment Poetry

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“Much verse fails of being poetry because it was not written exactly at the right crisis, though it may have been inconceivably near to it. It is only by a miracle that poetry is written at all. It is not recoverable thought, but a hue caught from a vaster receding thought.”

Inspirational Miracle Poetry

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“When I stand in a library where is all the recorded wit of the world, but none of the recording, a mere accumulated, and not trulycumulative treasure; where immortal works stand side by side with anthologies which did not survive their month, and cobweb and mildew have already spread from these to the binding of those; and happily I am reminded of what poetry is,--I perceive that Shakespeare and Milton did not foresee into what company they were to fall. Alas! that so soon the work of a true poet should be swept into such a dust-hole!”

Fall Dust Poetry

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the severest satire.... The greater the genius, the keener the edge of the satire.”

Men Genius Poetry

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Henry David Thoreau

Writer, Philosopher

“The great poem must have the stamp of greatness as well as its essence.”

Essence Greatness Poetry

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