“Socrates: The disgrace begins when a man writes not well, but badly.
Phaedrus: Clearly.
Socrates: And what is well and what is badly—need we ask Lysias, or any other poet or orator, who ever wrote or will write either a political or any other work, in metre or out of metre, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?”
258d (tr. Benjamin Jowett)
paraphrased in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig: "And what is good, Phaedrus, and what is not good—need we ask anyone to tell us these things?"
Phaedrus
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Plato 80
Classical Greek philosopher -427–-347 BCRelated quotes
“The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric,” p. 22.
The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953)

Letter to William Sotheby (13 July 1802)
Letters

“My objection to metre is that it enables people to write verse with no poetic inspiration.”
Lecture on Modern Poetry (1914)

Introduction, Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979).

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Prophet

“The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes…”
Source: Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930), p. 184

“The Angry Young Man”, p. 111.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)
“We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words.”
Source: The French Lieutenant's Woman