“poetry is the breath and finer spirit of knowledge”
William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads
Source: Lyrical Ballads
Preface.
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800)
“poetry is the breath and finer spirit of knowledge”
William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads
Source: Lyrical Ballads
“Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned.”
Emma Lazarus (1849–1887) American poet
From Critic and Poet - An Apologue
L. P. Jacks (1860–1955) British educator, philosopher, and Unitarian minister
The Usurpation Of Language (1910)
Context: Though science makes no use for poetry, poetry is enriched by science. Poetry “takes up” the scientific vision and re-expresses its truths, but always in forms which compel us to look beyond them to the total object which is telling its own story and standing in its own rights. In this the poet and the philosopher are one. Using language as the lever, they lift thought above the levels where words perplex and retard its flight, and leave it, at last, standing face to face with the object which reveals itself.
C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology
Psychology and Poetry (June 1930)
Freeman Dyson book The Scientist as Rebel
Part I : Contemporary Issues in Science, Ch. 1 : "The Scientist as Rebel"; this first appeared in New York Review of Books (25 May 1995).
The Scientist As Rebel (2006)
Context: There is no such thing as a unique scientific vision, any more than there is a unique poetic vision. Science is a mosaic of partial and conflicting visions. But there is one common element in these visions. The common element is rebellion against the restrictions imposed by the locally prevailing culture, Western or Eastern as the case may be. It is no more Western than it is Arab or Indian or Japanese or Chinese. Arabs and Indians and Japanese and Chinese had a big share in the development of modern science. And two thousand years earlier, the beginnings of science were as much Babylonian and Egyptian as Greek. One of the central facts about science is that it pays no attention to East and West and North and South and black and yellow and white. It belongs to everybody who is willing to make the effort to learn it. And what is true of science is true of poetry.... Poetry and science are gifts given to all of humanity.
“Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge - it is as immortal as the heart of man.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet
Roger Fry (1866–1934) English artist and art critic
Letter to R. C. Trevelyan , September 7, 1932
Other Quotes
“science and religion are intrinsically interconnected both being expressions of the human spirit.”
Varadaraja V. Raman (1932) American physicist
page 10
Truth and Tension in Science and Religion