Poetry Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old poetry quotes, poetry sayings, and poetry proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech. Henry David Thoreau
Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing. Edmund Burke
Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. Robert Frost
Poetry exists to extend human consciousness, to bring materials and insights from the unconscious dark into the light of language, Donald Hall
Poetry is the opening and closing of a door leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment. Carl Sandburg
There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it. Gustave Flaubert
Poetry is language surprised in the act of changing into meaning. Stanley Kunitz
Poetry is meant to inspire readers and listeners, to connect them more deeply to themselves even as it links them more fully to others. But many people feel put off by the terms of poetry, its odd vocabulary, its notorious difficulty. Edward Hirsch
He who draws noble delights from sentiments of poetry is a true poet, though he has never written a line in all his life. George Sand
Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before. Audre Lorde
Poetry is simply the most beautiful, impressive, and widely effective mode of saying things, and hence its importance. Matthew Arnold
Poetry is the statement of a relation between a man and the world. Wallace Stevens
Poetry can magnify experience. May Swenson
Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art. Thomas Hardy
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen
Poetry is another way of encouraging people to think and feel deeply about their own lives and their relationships to other people and other communities. Hannah Ensor
Poetry says more about the psychic life of an age than any other art. Poetry is a place where all the fundamental questions are asked about the human condition. Charles Simic
A poem is a language distilled into premium whiskey, no mix, no ice, no little umbrella. Penny Dyer
Poetry is memory becomes image, and image becomes voice. Octavio Paz
To circumscribe poetry by a definition will only chew the narrowness of the definer. Samuel Johnson
Poetry, like traditional music, is a product of, and repayment to, community. Bernard O' Donoghue
Poetry: three mismatched shoes at the entrance of a dark alley. Charles Simic
Poetry is a sofa full of blind singers who have put aside their canes... Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Poetry is the sound of summer in the rain and of people laughing behind closed shutters down a narrow street. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Poetry is the purest of the language arts. It's the tightest cage, and if you can get it to sing in that cage, it's really really wonderful. Rita Dove
Poetry is language at its most nourishing. It's the breastmilk of language. Robert Crawford
Poetry is like a substance, the words stick together as though they were magnetized to each other. David Gascoyne
Poetry is energy, it is an energy-storing and energy-releasing device. Miroslav Holub
Poetry is a dividend from what you know and what you are. Czeslaw Milosz
Poetry is a diagram of reality. A distillation of reality, that may make us free. Alicia Ostriker