The worst fate of a poet is to be admired without being understood.
-Jean Cocteau
"Le Rappel á l'ordre"
Quotations
Poet
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
-Plato
Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.
-T. S. Eliot
"Dante"
A few moments in a poet’s company teach us more about the essence of art than many a lecture and books.
-Etinne Gilsun
A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.
-Jay Z
"Decoded"
The poet's job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it.
-Jane Kenyon
It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.
-W. H. Auden
I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.
-Pablo Neruda
A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.
-H. L. Mencken
Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
