Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
T. S. Eliot

In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old.
Alfred Marshall

In its famous paradox, the equation of money and excrement, psychoanalysis becomes the first science to state what common sense and the poets have long known - that the essence of money is in its absolute worthlessness.
Norman O. Brown

In our period, they say there is free speech. They say there is no penalty for poets, There is no penalty for writing poems. They say this. This is the penalty.
Muriel Rukeyser

In Russia all tyrants believe poets to be their worst enemies.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko

In The Doors we have both musicians and poets, and both know of each other's art, so we can effect a synthesis.
Robby Krieger

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

In working on a poem, I love to revise. Lots of younger poets don't enjoy this, but in the process of revision I discover things.
Rita Dove

Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance.
Jean Anouilh

Intellectuals, academics, writers and poets were an important force in the early groups of volunteers. They had the means to get to Spain and were accustomed to travelling, whereas very few workers had left British shores.
Bill Alexander

Irish poets, learn your trade, sing whatever is well made, scorn the sort now growing up all out of shape from toe to top.
William Butler Yeats

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.
Aristotle

It is possible that Mount Olympus may have supplied the poets with the hint for saying that Jupiter obtained the kingdom of heaven, because Olympus is the common name both of the mountain and of heaven.
Lactantius

It is quite true, as some poets said, that the God who created man must have had a sinister sense of humor, creating him a reasonable being, yet forcing him to take this ridiculous posture, and driving him with blind craving for this ridiculous performance.
David Herbert Lawrence

It is strange, how quickly people want to obligate their poets, as it were, on the exile.
Peter Bichsel

It's difficult to get films made, especially films about poets.
Dougray Scott

It's easy to understand why the most beautiful poems about England in the spring were written by poets living in Italy at the time.
Philip Dunne

Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.
George Orwell

Let the poets cry themselves to sleep, and all their tearful words will turn back into steam.
Conor Oberst

Living at that pitch, on that edge, is something which many poets engage in to some extent.
Paul Muldoon