“A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.”

—  José Martí

Dedication of the Statue of Liberty (1887)
Source: Versos Sencillos: Simple Verses

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "A grain of poetry suffices to season a century." by José Martí?
José Martí photo
José Martí103
Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader 1853–1895

Related quotes

David Hare photo

“Our poetry in the eighteenth century was prose; our prose in the seventeenth, poetry.”

David Hare (1947) British writer

Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare Guesses at Truth (London: Macmillan, ([1827-48] 1867) p. 143.
Misattributed

“I would say that poetry for most people is like the Christmas tree that is kept in the attic and is taken down in its appropriate season.”

Dennis O'Driscoll (1954–2012) Irish poet, critic

Poetry Quotes

Gregor Mendel photo

“It concerns the opinion of Naudin and Darwin that a single pollen grain does not suffice for fertilization of the ovule. I used Mirabilis Jalappa for an experimental plant, as Naudin had done; the result of my experiment is, however, completely different. From fertilizations with single pollen grains, I obtained eighteen well-developed seeds, and from these an equal number of plants, of which ten are already in bloom”

Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) Silesian scientist and Augustinian friar

Letter VIII, July 3rd, 1870.
Letters to Carl Nägeli

“Unfortunately, much of the post-Homeric poetry—called lyric poetry because it was usually sung to a lyre—was lost in the upheavals of subsequent centuries, especially in the depredations and decay that would follow the barbarian incursions into the Greco-Roman world in the fifth century A. D.”

Thomas Cahill (1940) American scholar and writer

Source: Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (2003), Ch. III The Poet: How to Party

“The excavators cleared out one of the ancient cisterns, and a few of the winter rains sufficed to fill the cistern with enough water to supply the expedition with water for the whole season. This illustrates the possibilities of almost any country, provided the right kind of people are there.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Source: Adventures in the Nearest East (1957), Ch.1 Exploring Edom and Moab
Context: The excavators cleared out one of the ancient cisterns, and a few of the winter rains sufficed to fill the cistern with enough water to supply the expedition with water for the whole season. This illustrates the possibilities of almost any country, provided the right kind of people are there. With energetic people, the few, but heavy, winter rains and be stretched a long, long way.

Michel Chossudovsky photo

“The experience of Somalia shows that famine in the late 20th century is not a consequence of a shortage of food. On the contrary, famines are spurred on as result of a global oversupply of grain staples.”

Michel Chossudovsky (1946) Canadian economist

Source: The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order - Second Edition - (2003), Chapter 6, Somalia The Real Causes of Famine, p. 99

Torquato Tasso photo

“You know the world delights in lovely things,
for men have hearts sweet poetry will win,
and when the truth is seasoned in soft rhyme
it lures and leads the most reluctant in.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Là corre il mondo, ove più versi
Di sue dolcezze il lusinghier Parnaso;
E che 'l vero condito in molli versi,
I più schivi allettando ha persuaso.
Canto I, stanza 3 (tr. Anthony Esolen)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Charles Baudelaire photo

“Vegetal ambrosia, precious grain scattered
By the eternal Sower, I shall descend in you
So that from our love there will be born poetry,
Which will spring up toward God like a rare flower!”

Charles Baudelaire book Les Fleurs du mal

"En toi je tomberai, végétale ambroisie,
Grain précieux jeté par l'éternel Semeur,
Pour que de notre amour naisse la poésie
Qui jaillira vers Dieu comme une rare fleur!"
"L'Âme du Vin" [The Soul of Wine]
Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)

Hugh Iltis photo

“Current evidence suggests that teosinte was first tended for its green ears and sugary pith by hunter-gatherers as an occasional rainy-season food in small “garden” populations away from its homeland, and not for its abundant grain-containing, hard fruitcases, which easily mass-collected but useless as food, are as yet unknown from the archeological record. A rare grain-liberating teosinte mutation (probably expressed in only one “founder” plant, a mazoid “Eve”), which exposed the encased grain for easy harvest, was soon recognized as useful, collected and planted (or self-planted). Thus maize was started on its way to a unique horticultural domestication that is not comparable to that of the temperate Old World mass-selected agricultural grains.”

Hugh Iltis (1925–2016) Czech-American botanist and environmentalist

[January 2000, Homeotic Sexual Translocations and the Origin of Maize (Zea mays, Poaceae): A New Look at an Old Problem, Economic Botany, 54, 1, 7–42, 10.1007/BF02866598] (quote from p. 7)

Henry David Thoreau photo

“A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

Related topics