Robert Graves quotes

Robert Graves was a British poet, novelist, and classical scholar, known for works such as "I, Claudius." His writings explored mythology, history, and the human condition with great depth and imagination. He remains influential in both literary and academic circles. Here are 137 of his quotes:

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good - in spite of all the people who say he is very good. (Robert Graves)
To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession. View quote
Robert Graves
If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of a man who desrves them. View quote
Robert Graves
In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained. View quote
Robert Graves
Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists; though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science. View quote
Robert Graves
Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason. View quote
Robert Graves
There's a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility. View quote
Robert Graves
Every fairy child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild - I'd love to be a Fairy's child. View quote
Robert Graves
I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horror of sordid passion and - if he is lucky enough - know the love of an honest woman. View quote
Robert Graves
Entrance and exit wounds are silvered clean, The track aches only when the rain reminds. The one-legged man forgets his leg of wood, The one-armed man his jointed wooden arm. The blinded man sees with his ears and hands As much or more than once with both his eyes. View quote
Robert Graves
Kaisers and Czars will strut the stage Once more with pomp and greed and rage; Courtly ministers will stop At home and fight to the last drop; By the million men will die In some new horrible agony... (Robert Graves)
Poet, never chase the dream. Laugh yourself and turn away. Mask your hunger, let it seem Small matter if he come or stay; But when he nestles in your hand at last, Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast. View quote
Robert Graves
Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them. View quote
Robert Graves
Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a start, he has a strong personal rhythm to vary his metrics, he is nothing. Poets mistrust philosophy. They know that once the heads are counted, each owner of a head loses his personal identity and becomes a number in some government scheme: if not as a slave or serf, at least as a party to the device of majority voting, which smothers personal views. View quote
Robert Graves
Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart's desire... View quote
Robert Graves
Hardly one soldier in a hundred was inspired by religious feeling of even the crudest kind. It would have been difficult to remain religious in the trenches even if one had survived the irreligion of the training battalion at home. View quote
Robert Graves
Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon. View quote
Robert Graves
As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as I yours for ever. View quote
Robert Graves
Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill. View quote
Robert Graves
Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence. Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves. Of never acquiescing in a fraud; of never accepting the secondary-rate in poetry, painting, music, love, friends. Of safeguarding our poetic institutions against the encroachments of mechanized, insensate, inhumane, abstract rationality. View quote
Robert Graves
When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much. (Robert Graves)
So when I'm killed, don't wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You'll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you've read. View quote
Robert Graves
Lovers to-day and for all time Preserve the meaning of my rhyme: Love is not kindly nor yet grim But does to you as you to him. View quote
Robert Graves
Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight. View quote
Robert Graves
Hate is a fear, and fear is rot That cankers root and fruit alike, Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not, Strike with no madness when you strike. View quote
Robert Graves