“A satirical poet is the check of the laymen on bad priests.”
Preface to the Fables.
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)
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John Dryden196
English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century 1631–1700Related quotes
José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader
On El Poema de Niágara of Pérez Bonalde (1883)
“All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.”
Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist
“One cannot now say, the priest is as the people, for the truth is that the people are not so bad as the priest.”
Non est jam dicere, "Ut populus, sic sacerdos"; quia nec si populus, ut sacerdos.
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian
In Conversione S. Pauli, Sermon 1, sect. 3; translation by James Spedding, in The Works of Francis Bacon (1860) vol. 12, p. 134
Ut populus, sic sacerdos is a quotation from Isaiah 24:2.
T.S. Eliot book The Sacred Wood
Source: "Philip Massinger", a biographical essay in The Sacred Wood (1920)
“Promises were like bad checks, easy to write and hard to cash.”
Robert Charles Wilson book Blind Lake
Source: Blind Lake (2003), Chapter 15 (p. 179)
Michael Hamburger (1924–2007) British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic
Interview with Lidia Vianu http://lidiavianu.scriptmania.com/Michael%20Hamburger.htm
“One may quote bad poetry if it is by a great poet.”
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos book Les Liaisons dangereuses
On peut citer de mauvais vers, quand ils sont d'un grand poète. <br class="br">Letter 4: Le Vicomte de Valmont to la Marquise de Merteuil. Trans. P.W.K. Stone (1961). http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Liaisons_dangereuses_-_Lettre_4 <br class="br">Les liaisons dangereuses (1782)
Al Franken (1951) American comedian and politician
As quoted in "The Trump Era Is Al Franken’s Time to Shine" by Graham Vyse, in New Republic (2 February 2017) https://newrepublic.com/article/140342/trump-era-al-frankens-time-shine