Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these things.  Emily Dickinson quotes
Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity -it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. John Keats quotes It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music. Voltaire quotes I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so in whining poetry. John Donne quotes Poetry comes nearer to vital truth than history. Plato quotes Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself. He who has a contempt for poetry, cannot have much respect for himself, or for anything else. William Hazlitt quotes Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject. John Keats quotes You will not find poetry anywhere unless you bring some of it with you. Joseph Joubert quotes Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom. Robert Frost quotes Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds. Percy Bysshe Shelley quotes | 
