15 quotes
All emotions are the ore from which poetry may be sifted.
There is nothing to do but keep on.
A poem is good if it contains a new analogy and startles the reader out of the habit of treating words as counters.
Speculations (1924)
Literature, like memory, selects only the vivid patches.
The artist tries to see what there is to be interested in... He has not created something, he has seen something.
Speculations (1924)
In the light of absolute values (religious or ethical) man himself is judged to be limited or imperfect, while he can occasionally accomplish acts which partake of perfection, he, himself can never be perfect.
Speculations (1924)
The prose writer drags meaning along with a rope, the poet makes it stand out and hit you.
Speculations (1924)
My objection to metre is that it enables people to write verse with no poetic inspiration.
Lecture on Modern Poetry (1914)
Thought is prior to language and consists in the simultaneous presentation to the mind of two different images.
Notes on Language and Style (1929)
Poetry is no more, no less than a mosaic of words, so great exactness is required for each one.
Notes on Language and Style (1929)
Old houses were scaffolding once
and workmen whistling.
Images (1960)
It is a delicate & difficult art fitting rhythm to an idea...communicating momentary phases in a poet's mind.
Speculations (1924)
A number of abstract ideas, of which we are as a matter of fact unconscious. We do not see them, but we see other things through them.
Speculations (1924)
The unit of significance in the poem is not the word but the phrase or sentence...a poet should consider the effect of the whole poem, not its local felicities.
Lecture on Modern Poetry (1914)
If literature (realistic) did really resemble life, it would be interminable, dreary, commonplace eating and dressing, buttoning, with here and there a patch of vividness. Life is composed of exquisite moments and the rest is shadows of them.
Notes on Language and Style (1929)