38 quotes
All revolutions in modern times, Camus points out, have led to a reinforcement of the power of the State.
Foreword (1956)
These are the sensations and feelings that are gradually blunted by education, staled by custom, rejected in favor of social conformity.
Collected Poems (1966)
The work of art … is an instrument for tilling the human psyche, that it may continue to yield a harvest of vital beauty.
Collected Poems (1966)
Restraint is not the contrary of revolt.
Foreword (1956)
True poetry is never speech but always a song.
I believe that the poet is necessarily an anarchist, and that he must oppose all organized conceptions of the State, not only those which we inherit from the past, but equally those which are imposed on people in the name of the future.
Poetry and Anarchism (1938)
Revolt, it will be said, implies violence; but this is an outmoded, an incompetent conception of revolt. The most effective form of revolt in this violent world we live in is non-violence.
We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.
Foreword (1956)
What I am searching for... is some formula that would combine individual initiative with universal values, and that combination would give us a truly organic form.
The Origins of Art (1966)
English Poetry has come full circle from the widest public appeal, the communal poetry of ballads to the narrowest possible , in the present day as the poet addresses himself.
Phases in English Poetry (1928)
True poetry was never speech, but always song.
What is a Poem - Endword - Selected Poems (1926)
I have not the slightest doubt that this form of individuation represents a higher stage in the evolution of mankind.
The Philosophy of Anarchism (1940)
Kierkegaard’s life was in every sense that of a saint. He is perhaps the most real saint of modern times.
A Coat Of Many Colours (1945)
Words,their sound and even their very appearance, are, of course,everything to the poet.
Form in Modern Poetry (1932)
Poetry, we might say, is concerned with the truth of what is, not with what is truth.
What is a Poem - Endword - Selected Poems (1926)
The revolutionary artist is born into a world of clichés, of stale images and signs which no longer pierce the consciousness to express reality. He therefore invents new symbols, perhaps a whole new symbolic system.
The Philosophy of Modern Art: Collected Essays (1971)
The distinction between a major and minor poet is the ability to write a long poem successfully.
Form in Modern Poetry (1932)
The process of poetry consists firstly in maintaining this vision in its integrity and secondly in expressing this vision in words.
Form in Modern Poetry (1932)
The poem, even when it has some predetermined pattern, must be wrought to some effect or finish that justifies the exclamation: This is a poem!
What is a Poem - Endword - Selected Poems (1926)
All art originates in an act of intuition or vision.
Form in Modern Poetry (1932)