“Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility.”
Diary of an Unknown (1988), On Invisibility
Context: Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility. In that case, you ask me, of what use is it? Of no use. Who will see it? No one. Which does not prevent it from being an outrage to modesty, though its exhibitionism is squandered on the blind. It is enough for poetry to express a personal ethic, which can then break away in the form of a work. It insists on living its own life. It becomes the pretext for a thousand misunderstandings that go by the name of glory...
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Jean Cocteau 123
French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager … 1889–1963Related quotes
The Overwhelming Question ' University of Toronto Press 1976
"Large group awareness training program" http://skepdic.com/lgsap.html, The Skeptic's Dictionary
“Poetry — No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself.”
January 26, 1840
Journals (1838-1859)
Context: Poetry — No definition of poetry is adequate unless it be poetry itself. The most accurate analysis by the rarest wisdom is yet insufficient, and the poet will instantly prove it false by setting aside its requisitions. It is indeed all that we do not know. The poet does not need to see how meadows are something else than earth, grass, and water, but how they are thus much. He does not need discover that potato blows are as beautiful as violets, as the farmer thinks, but only how good potato blows are. The poem is drawn out from under the feet of the poet, his whole weight has rested on this ground. It has a logic more severe than the logician's. You might as well think to go in pursuit of the rainbow, and embrace it on the next hill, as to embrace the whole of poetry even in thought.
Re: Filk, puns, and other time wasting. http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/4bda6a98e5cf0bce (Usenet article).
Usenet articles, Miscellaneous
Letter to James Hessey (October 9, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)
Context: I have written independently without Judgment. I may write independently, and with Judgment, hereafter. The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself — That which is creative must create itself — In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a, silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.
Source: 1960s - 1980s, MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices (1973), Part 3, p. 672
Source: On Building Systems That Will Fail (1991), p. 80
Burnet, F.M. (1949) "Some aspects of the epidemiology of poliomyelitis". in: Proc. Royal Australasian College of Physicians. 4: 95-100.
Quote from 1949 on the development of a poliomyelitis vaccine, which was developed later that year.
