Quotes About Expression

As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.

One cannot review a bad book without showing off.

when the ego disappears, so does power over language.

Lo único sensato por parte de un crítico es permanecer en silencio frente a las obras que considera francamente malas, mientras defiende vigorosamente las que cree buenas, sobre todo si estas son ignoradas o menospreciadas por el público.

Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.

Anger is not inappropriate in and of itself. But there

Poetry is like making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you've lost the whole thing.

The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.

The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.

There are two good things in life - freedom of thought and freedom of action.

It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.

A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.

She [Sadie Thompson] gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she put into her answer."You men! You filthy dirty pigs! You're all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!"

Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.

Art for art's sake makes no more sense than gin for gin's sake.

Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.

Life isn't long enough for love and art.

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.

We write to-communicat"!

I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there's more enterprise In walking naked

O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer, Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance?

An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress

I) only write it now because I have grown to believe that there is no dangerous idea, which does not become less dangerous when written out in sincere and careful English. ("The Adoration of The Magi")