In this section, you'll find cute quotes and phrases about the following topics: sweet, cute, beauty, taste, art, poetry, poem, poets, literature, literary quotations, cute quotes, writers, writing, and writings. Check out our main page for more cute quotes on other subjects and categories.
Forbidden, p. p. Invested with a new and irresistible charm. Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce, The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary, s. v. Forbidden
Improvisator, n. (It. improvisatore) A chap who is happier at making verses than his auditors are in hearing them. Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce, The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary, s. v. Improvisator
Novel, n. A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such altitudes as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes - some of which have a large sale. Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce, The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary, s. v. Novel
Painting, n. The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.
Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work: the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between the two arts is that the modern painter chisels his patrons. Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce, The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary, s. v. Painting
Poem, n. Love - bliss - dove - kiss. 'Tis this peculiar sort of stuff; such miserable trash, that makes us cry out, "Hold! Enough!" and use too oft a big, big — —. Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce, The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary, s. v. Poem
Publish, v. In literary affairs, to become the fundamental element in a cone of critics. Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce, The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary, s. v. Publish
That willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. S. T. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Ch. 14
A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line. J. Conrad, The Nigger of the Narcissus, Preface
The eye is the best of artists. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, Beauty, III
[...] beauty, which, in relation to actions, as we have seen, comes unsought, and comes because it is unsought [...] Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, Beauty, III, 2
A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, Beauty, III, 3
The true philosopher and the true poet are one, and a beauty, which is truth, and a truth, which is beauty, is the aim of both. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, Idealism, VI, 3
As no air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, so neither can any artist entirely exclude the conventional, the local, the perishable from his book, or write a book of pure thought, that shall be as efficient, in all respects, to a remote posterity, as to contemporaries, or rather to the second age. Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar
Only so much do I know, as I have lived. Instantly we know whose words are loaded with life, and whose not. Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar
Like a piece of ice on a hot stove, a poem must ride on its own melting. A poem may be worked over once it is in being but may not be worried into being. R. Frost, Preface, Collected Poems
There is a great difference between painting a face and not washing it. T. Fuller, Church History, Book 7
Not huffy or stuffy, nor tiny or tall, But fluffy, just fluffy, with no brains at all.Sir A. P. Herbert, I Like them Fluffy
The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting. H. James, The Art of Fiction, Partial Portraits
Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by Singularity - it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a Remembrance. J. Keats, Letter to John Taylor, 27 Feb. 1818
When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder That such trivial people should muse and thunder In such lovely language.D. H. Lawrence, When I Read Shakespeare, 1
People who like this sort of thing will find this is the sort of thing they like. A. Lincoln, Criticism of book
It has been said that a good critique on a poem may be written by one who is no poet himself. This, according to your idea and mine of poetry, I feel to be false - the less poetical the critic, the less just the critique, and the converse. E. A. Poe, Letter to B-
To proceed: ceteris paribus, he who pleases, is of more importance to his fellow men than he who instructs, since utility is happiness, and pleasure is the end already obtained which instruction is merely the means of obtaining. E. A. Poe, Letter to B-
A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for its immediate object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having for its object an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible images with definite, poetry with indefinite sensations, to which end music is an essential, since the comprehension of sweet sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definitiveness. E. A. Poe, Letter to B-
For a poem is not the Poetic faculty, but the means of exciting it in mankind. E. A. Poe, The Drake-Halleck Review
[...] that popular although vague idea so prevalent throughout all time, that a species of melancholy is inseparably connected with the higher manifestations of the beautiful. E. A. Poe, The Drake-Halleck Review
We cannot bring ourselves to believe that less actual ability is required in the composition of a really good "brief article," than in a fashionable novel of the usual dimensions. The novel certainly requires what is denominated a sustained effort - but this is a matter of mere perseverance, and has but a collateral relation to talent. E. A. Poe, Watkins Tottle
Diminutive paintings give that spotty look to a room, which is the blemish of so many a fine work of Art overtouched. E. A. Poe, The Philosophy of Furniture
In all commentating upon Shakspeare, there has been a radical error, never yet mentioned. It is the error of attempting to expound his characters - to account for their actions - to reconcile his inconsistencies - not as if they were the coinage of a human brain, but as if they had been actual existences upon earth. E. A. Poe, Hazlitt
That pleasure which is at once the most intense, the most elevating, and the most pure, is, I believe, found in the contemplation of the beautiful. When, indeed, men speak of Beauty, they mean, precisely, not a quality, as is supposed, but an effect - they refer, in short, just to that intense and pure elevation of soul - not of intellect, or of heart - upon which I have commented, and which is experienced in consequence of contemplating "the beautiful." E. A. Poe, The Philosophy of Composition
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones. E. A. Poe, The Philosophy of Composition
We can, at any time, double the true beauty of an actual landscape by half closing our eyes as we look at it. E. A. Poe, The Veil of the Soul
I maintain that the phrase, "a long poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms. E. A. Poe, The Poetic Principle
If, at any time, any very long poem were popular in reality, which I doubt, it is at least clear that no very long poem will ever be popular again. E. A. Poe, The Poetic Principle
Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or enduring effect. E. A. Poe, The Poetic Principle
Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.A. Pope, An Essay on Criticism, 253
Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance. J. Ruskin, The Stones of Venice
What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.W. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 2, 2, 43
If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction. W. Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, 3, 4, 121
Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.P. B. Shelley, To a Skylark, 1
You shall see them on a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivulet of text shall meander through a meadow of margin. R. B. Sheridan, School for Scandal, Act 1, Scene 1
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity. W. Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads, Preface
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There was hardly ever a poet or writer that embodied poetical beauty, art, and taste as truly as the great Victorian poet, Oscar Wilde. Now, all you need to do to read his deepest thoughts, from "Whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong," to "I can resist everything except temptation," is conveniently purchase online your Oscar Wilde's Quotes Poster. Or maybe just find your preferred poster yourself.
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