Socrates Quotes

Poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say.

Poesy must not be drawn by the ears: it must be gently led, or rather, it must lead, which was partly the cause that made the ancient learned affirm it was a divine, and no human skill, since all other knowledges lie ready for any that have strength of wit; a poet no industry can make, if his own genius be not carried into it.

A noble soul and real poetic talent are almost always inseparable.

I wouldn't be able to do the songs as long as I've been doing if I didn't feel the pulse of the world. But I can feel people and I know what they want. I feel like I know how they are, because I am the people. And I just have a gift.

[Raphael's] great superiority is due to the instinctive sense which, in him, seems to desire to shatter form. Form is, in his figures, what it is in ourselves, an interpreter for the communication of ideas and sensations, an exhaustless source of poetic inspiration. Every figure is a world in itself, a portrait of which the original appeared in a sublime vision, in a flood of light, pointed to by an inward voice, laid bare by a divine finger which showed what the sources of expression had been in the whole past life of the subject.

The Muse gave the Greeks genius and the art of the well-turned phrase.

For not by art does the poet sing, but by power divine. Had he learned by rules of art, he would have known how to speak not of one theme only, but of all; and therefore God takes away the minds of poets, and uses them as his ministers, as he also uses diviners and holy prophets, in order that we who hear them may know them to be speaking not of themselves who utter these priceless words in a state of unconsciousness, but that God himself is the speaker, and that through them he is conversing with us.

poets are born knowing the language of angels

Most writers - poets in especial - prefer having it understood that they compose by a species of fine frenzy - an ecstatic intuition - and would positively shudder at letting the public take a peep behind the scenes.

I always say, and I truly believe this, that my work is three steps ahead of me. I have an idea for something and I tend to feel like it's leading me and I'll follow the process through, and it's not until after I've seen it that I truly understand why I'm doing this.

One can be a great poet and be politically stupid.

In a poem, the words happen; they just come. I let them. Otherwise, I wouldn't write. To interfere with what is happening is to distort the poem. Just a very small degree of intelligence and supervision is necessary. Very tactful. Any revision later that violates the text as it came, that begins rewriting the words, is fake.

There are people who can sit down and write a song about any given subject, and they can do it really, really well.

I've never been able to understand where great artists come from.

The difference between a top-flight creative man and the hack is his ability to express powerful meanings indirectly.

Sometimes when I write songs, I don't know what they're about, and it just suddenly comes to me.

I don't think anybody is a poet 24/7, only in those rare moments when a person is producing a poem.

Poets are born, not paid.

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.

Could I have chosen my own genius, I should have made myself a great poet.

I am a writer... I am a genius of a writer; I have it in me. I am writing the best poems of my life; they will make my name.

An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it.

I got to pick the mind of a genius, and I realized why he was a genius. And I realized the man behind the veil or whatever you want to call it. Do you know what I mean? I got to see what makes Dr. Dre Dr. Dre, and I got to interpret that. It's hard to put it into words, so the only thing I know how to do is put it on the screen.

It's very strange: if you're a philosopher or musician or an artist, people automatically believe you can see the future. Even if they don't like you, they accept your vision as an individual.

When you're a kid, and someone's an artist, you think of Leonardo da Vinci. You don't think that's a job; you just think of a man with a beard, painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.