Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.
Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry.
Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place.
It was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
Poetry is the deification of reality.
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
Thinking in its lower grades, is comparable to paper money, and in its higher forms it is a kind of poetry.