“There have been many most excellent poets that never versified, and now swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the name of poets.”
Page 87.
An Apology of Poetry, or The Defence of Poesy (1595)
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Philip Sidney 26
English diplomat 1554–1586Related quotes
“A Verse Chronicle”, p. 149
Poetry and the Age (1953)
“I'm obviously not orthodox, I don't know how many real poets have ever been orthodox.”
"R. S. Thomas in conversation with Molly Price-Owen." in The David Jones Journal R. S. Thomas Special Issue (Summer/Autumn 2001)

“There never yet have been, nor are there now, too many good books.”

“Mediocrity in poets has never been tolerated by either men, or gods, or booksellers.”
Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non di, non concessere columnae.
Lines 372–373 http://books.google.com/books?id=hlgNAAAAYAAJ&q=%22mediocribus+esse+poetis+Non+homines+non+di+non+concessere+columnae%22&pg=PA769#v=onepage
Ars Poetica, or The Epistle to the Pisones (c. 18 BC)

“Whoever knows many things
By nature is a poet.”
Olympian 2, line 87; page 16; the Greek simply says:
"wise is one who knows much by nature," but σοφός is Pindar's usual word for poet.
Variant translations:
Inborn of nature's wisdom
The poet's truth.
Olympian Odes (476 BC)

Source: The Courage to Create (1975), Ch. 4 : Creativity and the Encounter, p. 79

"Miscellaneous Thoughts" in The Poems of Samuel Butler, Volume 2, Press of C. Whittingham, 1822, p. 269
"Fragments", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)