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The Epicureans especially made sport with the paltry Poetry that came from Delphos.

— Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle The History of Oracles, and the Cheats of the Pagan Priests (1688)

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Poetry

More quotes by Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle

Astronomy is the daughter of idleness, geometry is the daughter of interest.

We can never add more truth to what is true already, nor make that true which is false.

The History of Oracles, and the Cheats of the Pagan Priests (1688)

It is more reasonable to remove error from truth, than to venerate error because it is mix'd with truth.

The History of Oracles, and the Cheats of the Pagan Priests (1688)

If I held all of truth in my hand I would beware of opening it to men.

Behold a universe so immense that I am lost in it. I no longer know where I am. I am just nothing at all. Our world is terrifying in its insignificance.

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There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature (1836)

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: Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.