
“The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”
"Why I Write," Gangrel (Summer 1946)
Something About a Soldier (1940)
“The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”
"Why I Write," Gangrel (Summer 1946)
“Do you speak Scorn and Mockery to everyone? Or just to your betters?”
Source: The Tales of Alvin Maker, Alvin Journeyman (1995), Chapter 2.
“The poet should be responsible to the poem.”
The Poet's Poetic Responsibility (2012)
Apparently attributed to Marx in Bennett Cerf's Try and Stop Me, first published in 1944. A citation of this can been seen in the Kentucky New Era on November 9, 1964 http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=X-orAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZWcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4581,3323702&dq=art-of-looking-for-trouble&hl=en. Also attributed to Marx by Rand Paul in "The Long Stand," ch. 1 of Taking a Stand: Moving Beyond Partisan Politics to Unite America (New York, N. Y.: Center Street, 26 May 2015), p. 5.
The original quotation belongs to Sir Ernest Benn (Henry Powell Spring, What is Truth?, Orange Press, 1944, p. 31 https://books.google.com/books?id=snxbAAAAMAAJ&q=Ernest+benn+%22Politics+is+the+art+of%22&dq=Ernest+benn+%22Politics+is+the+art+of%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAjgUahUKEwiK3Zm-qojIAhWGVZIKHdFYBqY); a first known citation reportedly appears in the Springfield (MA) Republican on July 27, 1930.
Misattributed
Variant: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Source: Gyles Brandreth, Word Play: A cornucopia of puns, anagrams and other contortions and curiosities of the English language, Coronet, 2015.
Source: "Prayut vows not to resign" in Bangkok Post https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/politics/2157447/prayut-vows-not-to-resign (31 July 2021)
“Fifty Years of American Poetry”, pp. 327–328
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)
Source: The Victorian Age in Literature (1913), On Algernon Charles Swinburne Ch. III: The Great Victorian Poets (p. 95)
Form in Modern Poetry(1932)