Skip to content

The Poet's License! — 't is the right,
Within the rule of duty,
To look on all delightful things
Throughout the world of beauty. To gaze with rapture at the stars
That in the skies are glowing;
To see the gems of perfect dye
That in the woods are growing, —
And more than sage astronomer,
And more than learned florist,
To read the glorious homilies
Of Firmament and Forest.

— John Godfrey Saxe The Masquerade and Other Poems (1866)

Another quote →

More quotes by John Godfrey Saxe

Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.

'Tis well to borrow from the good and great;
'Tis wise to learn; 'tis God-like to create!

The Library: Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

At Learning's fountain it is sweet to drink,
But 'tis a nobler privilege to think.

The Library; Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

'T is wise to learn; 't is God-like to create.

"God bless the man who first invented sleep!"
So Sancho Panza said, and so say I.

All John Godfrey Saxe quotes →

Attribution

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