#poetry

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. ↗

— Albert Einstein

#logical #mathematics #poetry #pure #way

As things are, and as fundamentally they must always be, poetry is not a career, but a mug's game. No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written: He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing. ↗

— T. S. Eliot

#career #ever #feel #fundamentally #game

Poetry is a mere drug, Sir. ↗

— George Farquhar

#poetry #sir

A man of eighty has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress. ↗

— Lord Byron

#dress #eighty #hundred #man #new

Bleak House is just the most astounding piece of work. There's huge, visionary poetry in it. ↗

— Simon Callow

#bleak #house #huge #just #most

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea. ↗

— John Updike

#fiction #hugging #open #poetry #sailing

Man would not be man if his dreams did not exceed his grasp. ... Like John Donne, man lies in a close prison, yet it is dear to him. Like Donne's, his thoughts at times overleap the sun and pace beyond the body. If I term humanity a slime mold organism it is because our present environment suggest it. If I remember the sunflower forest it is because from its hidden reaches man arose. The green world is his sacred center. In moments of sanity he must still seek refuge there. ... If I dream by contrast of the eventual drift of the star voyagers through the dilated time of the universe, it is because I have seen thistledown off to new worlds and am at heart a voyager who, in this modern time, still yearns for the lost country of his birth. ↗

— Loren Eiseley

#human #poetry #dreams

In this brief transit where the dreams cross The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying (Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things From the wide window towards the granite shore The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying Unbroken wings And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices And the weak spirit quickens to rebel For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell Quickens to recover The cry of quail and the whirling plover And the blind eye creates The empty forms between the ivory gates And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth This is the time of tension between dying and birth The place of solitude where three dreams cross Between blue rocks But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away Let the other yew be shaken and reply. ↗

— T.S. Eliot

#poetry #religion #dreams

Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks. ↗

— Edward Koch

#art form #beautifully #big #canvas #deals

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses. ↗

— Jean Cocteau

#bother #does #gardener #his #nor