7 quotes
Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.
Lives of the English Poets (1779)
The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights.
The Lives of the English Poets (1781)
Sir, what is Poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is: but it is not easy to tell what it is.
There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice,
And wake from ignorance the Western World.
The Tragedy of Irene (1749)
Was ever poet so trusted before?
To a poet nothing can be useless.
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)
Wheresoe'er I turn my view,
All is strange, yet nothing new:
Endless labor all along,
Endless labor to be wrong:
Phrase that Time has flung away;
Uncouth words in disarray,
Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet,
Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.