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Poets lose half the praise they should have got,
Could it be known what they discreetly blot.

— Edmund Waller Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857)

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Poetry

More quotes by Edmund Waller

For all we know
Of what the blessed do above
Is, that they sing, and that they love.

To love is to believe, to hope, to know;
'Tis an essay, a taste of Heaven below!

The yielding marble of her snowy breast.

Love only enters as a native there,
For born in heav'n, it does but sojourn here.

Of Divine Love (1686)

He that alone would wise and mighty be,
Commands that others love as well as he.

Of Divine Love (1686)

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Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.

T. S. Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.

George Chapman Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)

I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.

Michael Faraday

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edmund Waller (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.