Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.

poetry is the breath and finer spirit of knowledge

Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is the countenance of all science.

Poetry comes out of life.

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.

Poetry turns all things to loveliness; it exalts the beauty of that which is most beautiful, and it adds beauty to that which is most deformed; it marries exultation and horror, grief and pleasure, eternity and change; it subdues to union under its light yoke all irreconcilable things. It transmutes all that it touches, and every form moving within the radiance of its presence is changed by wondrous sympathy to an incarnation of the spirit which it breathes: its secret alchemy turns to potable gold the poisonous waters which flow from death through life; it strips the veil of familiarity from the world, and lays bare the naked and sleeping beauty, which is the spirit of its forms.

Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feelings, reviews the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the springtime of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature, by vivid delineations of its tenderest and softest feelings, and through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life.

Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation's tears in shoulder blades.

Poetry is a life-cherishing force.

Poetry is an awareness of the world, a particular way of relating to reality.

poetry is a way of seeing and that a poet is not so much a person skilled with words as a person who recognizes the poetry that exists all the time all around us.

Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings.

Poetry is an attempt to penetrate the dense reality to find a place where the simplest things look as new as through the eyes of a child.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.