On poetry
“A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly.”
On Publishing
Writers at Work (1977)
Context: A book is like a man — clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.
“To find beauty in ugliness is the province of the poet.”
Statement (5 August 1888), as quoted in The life of Thomas Hardy 1840-1928 (1962) by Florence Emily Hardy
Morals in the Book of Job, 553d, as translated in Cultural Performances in Medieval France (2007), p. 129
Original: (la) Scriptura sacra mentis oculis quasi quoddam speculum opponitur, ut interna nostra facies in ipsa videatur. Ibi etenim foeda, ibi pulchra nostra cognoscimus.
Quoted in Shirali, Aresh (10 August 2017). "The Enigma of Aligarh" https://openthemagazine.com/freedom-issue-2017/freedom-issue-2017-dispatches-from-history/the-enigma-of-aligarh/. Open Magazine.
Variant: "India is like a bride which has got two beautiful and lustrous eyes—Hindus and Mussulmans. If they quarrel against each other that beautiful bride will become ugly and if one destroys the other, she will lose one eye." Writings and Speeches of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan https://books.google.com/books?id=ausHAAAAMAAJ, p. 160.
“I'm only interested in poetry.”
Source: The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966
“A beautiful woman can make herself
look ugly in the eyes of a man if she is very insecure.”
Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship
1790s, Letter to Revd. Dr. Trusler (1799)
The Ancestress (Spoken by Bertha)
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
