A Quote by Henry David Thoreau

The works of great poets have never been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them.

Henry David Thoreau

Quote Topics

Been Great Great Poet Mankind Never Only Poets Read Them Works

Quote Author

Henry David Thoreau
American - Author
July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862

I worked privately, and sometimes I feel that might be better for poets than the kind of social workshop gathering. My school was the great poets: I read, and I read, and I read.

Mary Oliver

All poets who, when reading from their own works,m experience a choked feeling, are major. For that matter, all poets who read from their own works are major, whether they choke or not.

E. B. White

In the world of poetry there are would-be poets, workshop poets, promising poets, lovesick poets, university poets, and a few real poets.

James Broughton

Nearly all men and women are poetical, to some extent, but very few can be called poets. There are great poets, small poets, and men and women who make verses. But all are not poets, nor even good versifiers. Poetasters are plentiful, but real poets are rare. Education can not make a poet, though it may polish and develop one.

Orson F. Whitney

My advice to aspiring poets is to find a community of other poets who are willing to read one another's work. And to read widely, in a variety of time periods and cultures, to identify which traits of poems are appealing and which aversive. And what can be stolen.

Lucia Perillo

I do not remember where I read that there are two kinds of poets: the good poets, who at a certain point destroy their bad poems and go off to run guns in Africa, and the bad poets, who publish theirs and keep writing more until they die.

Umberto Eco

I don't know if younger poets read a lot of, you know, the poets - the established poets. There was a lot of pretty boring stuff to sort of put up with and to add to, to make something vital from.

Robert Adamson

If the United States haven't grown poets, on any scale of grandeur, it is certain that they import, print, and read more poetry than any equal number of people elsewhere -- probably more than the rest of the world combined. Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations -- many rare combinations. To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.

Walt Whitman

The only people who still read poetry are poets, and they mostly read their own.

Barbara Holland

In general, I would think that at present prose writers are much in advance of the poets. In the old days, I read more poetry than prose, but now it is in prose where you find things being put together well, where there is great ambition, and equal talent. Poets have gotten so careless, it is a disgrace. You can’t pick up a page. All the words slide off.

William H. Gass

When I began writing, I didn't read any other children's poets... I didn't want to be influenced until I'd found my own voice. Now I read them all.

Jack Prelutsky

I get a huge energy transfusion from listening to poets read their works.

Grace Cavalieri

When I first started reading poetry, all the poets I read - Edgar Allan Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier - were rhyme poets. That's what captured me.

Marv Levy

Read. Read. Read. Read. Read great books. Read poetry, history, biography. Read the novels that have stood the test of time. And read closely.

David McCullough

Over many years so many poets have touched my imagination and opened paths for me - it hardly makes sense to list them. I have always read a great deal of poetry.

Adrienne Rich

The phenomenon of Instagram poets - who are also, to be fair, Tumblr poets and Pinterest poets - has been one of the more surprising side-effects of the selfie age.

Michelle Dean

A Quote by Henry David Thoreau

Quote Topics

Quote Author

Related Quotes

Related Authors