Yvor Winters Quotes

#1. And one rose in a tent of sea and gave
A darkening shudder; water fell away;
The whale stood shining, and then sank in spray.

Yvor Winters

#2. The rain of matter upon sense
Destroys me momently. The score:
There comes what will come.

Yvor Winters

#3. The land is numb. It stands beneath the feet, and one may come Walking securely, till the sea extends Its limber margin, and precision ends.

Yvor Winters

#4. The passion to condense from book to book
Unbroken wisdom in a single look,
Though we know well that when this fix the head,
The mind's immortal, but the man is dead.

Yvor Winters

#5. Gascoigne, Ben Jonson, Greville, Raleigh, Donne,
Poets who wrote great poems, one by one,
And spaced by many years, each line an act
Through which few labor, which no men retract.
This passion is the scholar's heritage

Yvor Winters

#6. And when I found your flesh did not resist,
It was the living spirit that I kissed.

Yvor Winters

#7. Far out of sight forever stands the sea,
Bounding the land with pale tranquillity.

Yvor Winters

#8. Even though poetry was written for the 'minds ear' as well as the physical ear, the minds ear can be trained only by the other ... which comes back to reading poetry aloud ...

Yvor Winters

#9. By practice and conviction formed, With ancient stubbornness ingrained, Although her body clung and swarmed, My own identity remained.

Yvor Winters

#10. The poet's first job of work is to put bread on the table.

Yvor Winters

#11. Professors of literature, who for the most part are genteel but mediocre men, can make but a poor defense of their profession, and the professors of science, who are frequently men of great intelligence but of limited interests and education

Yvor Winters

#12. Reptilian green the wrinkled throat,
Green as a bough of yew the beard;
He bent his head, and so I smote

Yvor Winters