“And poets by their sufferings grow;
As if there were no more to do,
To make a poet excellent,
But only want and discontent.”

"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)

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Samuel Butler (poet) 81
poet and satirist 1612–1680

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