A Quote by Stephen Spender

Poetry cannot take sides except with life.

Stephen Spender

Quote Topics

Cannot Except Life Poetry Sides Take

Quote Author

Stephen Spender
English - Novelist
February 28, 1909 - July 16, 1995

You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.

William Shakespeare

If you are going to be a mediator or arbitrator you have to be in the middle between the two sides; you cannot take sides only with one party.

Bashar al-Assad

Poetry cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language.

Samuel Johnson

I'm not a stickler for truth. To me, lying in poetry is much more fun. I'm against lying in life, in principle, in any other activity except poetry.

Charles Simic

Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong - but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong.

Robert A. Heinlein

He is no lawyer who cannot take two sides.

Charles Lamb

That is why I think, in defiance of Plato, that there is at once error and vulgarity in saying that poetry is a lie, except in the sense that Cocteau wrote one day: I am a lie who always tells the truth. The only poetry which lies purely and simply is academic, pseudo-classical, conceptually repetitive poetry, and it is not poetry.

Jacques Maritain

We cannot separate ourselves from those whom we call the 'lower' animals. They are lower in the scale of evolution, but they, like us, are members of the One Family. We must not take away the life of any creature. Indeed, we must never take away that which we cannot give. And as we cannot restore a dead creature to life, we have no right to take away its' life.

Dada Vaswani

You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.

Samuel Johnson

It is a happy thing that there is no royal road to poetry. The world should know by this time that one cannot reach Parnassus except by flying thither.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

I never think about poetry except when I'm writing it. I mean my poetry.

Norman MacCaig

Poetry gets to be the poetry of life by successfully becoming first the poetry of poetry.

John Hollander

When you look at territorial disputes, there are good arguments on any sides. I think it's important that we don't take sides on legitimacy.

Henry Paulson

Life consists of two sides ... light and dark. Joy and sorrow. Without a balance, one cannot fully experience a full and well-rounded life.

JoAnn Ross

Poetry was syllable and rhythm. Poetry was the measurement of breath. Poetry was time make audible. Poetry evoked the present moment; poetry was the antidote to history. Poetry was language free from habit.