“To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.”
Reply to questionnaire, "The Cost of Letters" in Horizon (September 1946).
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Robert Graves 117
English poet and novelist 1895–1985Related quotes

“…conditioning usually reinforces instinct rather than overrides it.”
Source: The Red Queen (1993), Ch. 6

“I would rather be a swineherd, understood by the swine, than a poet misunderstood by men.”

Letter XXVIII (April 1820) Views of Society and Manners in America (1821)
Context: The Virginians are said to pride themselves upon the peculiar tenderness with which they visit the sceptre of authority on their African vassals. As all those acquainted with the character of the Virginia planters, whether American or foreigners, appear to concur in bearing testimony of their humanity, it is probable that they are entitled to the praise which they claim. But in their position, justice should be held superior to humanity; to break the chains would be more generous than to gild them; and whether we consider the interests of the master or the slave, decidedly more useful. To give liberty to a slave before he understands its value is, perhaps, rather to impose a penalty than to bestow a blessing; but it is not clear to me that the southern planters are duly exerting themselves to prepare the way for that change in the condition of their black populations which they profess to think not only desirable but inevitable.

On being a lawyer, as quoted by Claire Birge in The Stevensons : A Biography of an American Family (1997) by Jean H. Baker, p. 262

Source: Sex, Art and American Culture : New Essays (1992), Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 237