Stephen Spender quotes - page 3

Stephen Spender was an English poet, novelist, and essayist, celebrated for his works on social injustice and political themes. A key figure of the 1930s literary generation, he was associated with writers such as W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood. He contributed greatly to modern literature through his poetry, criticism, and international cultural involvement. Here are 93 of his quotes:

The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre. Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

Stephen Spender

I'm pressed into the inside of a mask At the back of love, the back of air, the back of light.

Stephen Spender

The immediate reaction of the poets who fought in the war was cynicism...

Stephen Spender

I think continually of those who were truly great. Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history Through corridors of light where the hours are suns, Endless and singing.

Stephen Spender

What is precious is never to forget The delight of the blood drawn from ancient springs Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.

Stephen Spender

Of course, the entire effort is to put myself Outside the ordinary range Of what are called statistics.

Stephen Spender

History is theirs whose language is the sun.

Stephen Spender

The laurelled exiles, kneeling to kiss these sands. Number there freedom's friends.

Stephen Spender

What the eye delights in, no longer dictates My greed to enjoy.

Stephen Spender

The ultimate aim of politics is not politics, but the activities which can be practised within the political framework of the State.

Stephen Spender

In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic, They beg, their eyes made big by empty staring And only measuring Time, like the blank clock.

Stephen Spender

History has tongues Has angels has guns - has saved has praised - Today proclaims Achievements of her exiles long returned.

Stephen Spender

Consider. One bullet in ten thousand kills a man. Ask. Was so much expenditure justified On the death of one so young and so silly Lying under the olive tree, O world, O death?

Stephen Spender

I regard my life as rather a failure in the only thing in which I wanted it to succeed. I have not written the books I ought to have written and I have written a lot of books I should not have written.

Stephen Spender

A poet can only write about what is true to his own experience, not about what he would like to be true to his experience.

Stephen Spender

All the lessons learned, unlearned.

Stephen Spender

Since we are what we are, what shall we be But what we are?

Stephen Spender

The essential is That all the 'I's should remain separate Propped up under flowers, and no one suffer For his neighbour. Then horror is postponed For everyone until it settles on him And drags him to that incommunicable grief Which is all mystery or nothing.

Stephen Spender

The poetic method sees the centre of consciousness as the point where all that is significant in the surrounding world becomes aware and transformed.

Stephen Spender

Under the olive trees, from the ground Grows this flower, which is a wound.

Stephen Spender

The spirit drinking timelessness; Touch, love, all senses.

Stephen Spender

I am for neither West nor East, but for myself considered as a self - one of the millions who inhabit the earth...

Stephen Spender