“Poetry is nothing less than an aspiration to absolute truth.”
Interview wiyh Kieran Owens ' The Event Guide' December 2002
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Dennis O'Driscoll30
Irish poet, critic 1954–2012Related quotes
Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author
From a letter to Robert W. Gordon (January 2, 1926)
Letters
“We would do absolutely nothing. Now that's a blunt, truthful answer.”
Gough Whitlam (1916–2014) Australian politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia
When asked what a Labor government would do if Indonesia were to invade East Timor, in an interview three days before the invasion. Sydney Morning Herald (5 December 1975)
“Poetry is no more, no less than a mosaic of words, so great exactness is required for each one.”
T. E. Hulme (1883–1917) English Imagist poet and critic
Notes on Language and Style (1929)
Mengistu Haile Mariam (1937) Former dictator of Ethiopia
Dawit Wolde Giorgis (1989) Red Tears: War, Famine and Revolution in Ethiopia, The Red Sea Press Inc., p. 112
About Mengistu
“Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity.”
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Reverence for Life (1969)
Context: Not less strong than the will to truth must be the will to sincerity. Only an age, which can show the courage of sincerity, can possess truth, which works as a spiritual force within it.
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist
“Poetry in a Dry Season”, p. 36
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays
"Poetry and Grammar"
Lectures in America (1935)
“You go to truth by way of poetry and I go to poetry by way of truth.”
Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist