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A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer... He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring

— E. B. White One Man's Meat (1942)

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Poetry

More quotes by E. B. White

Once in everyone's life there is apt to be a period when he is fully awake, instead of half asleep.

One Man's Meat (1942)

Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.

I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear.

It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the bylaws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.

One Man's Meat (1942)

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.

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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: E. B. White (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.