Top 120 Robert Graves Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.”

— Robert Graves

2. “Let all the poison that lurks in the mud, hatch out.”

— Robert Graves

3. “Intuition is the supra-logic that cuts out all the routine processes of thought and leaps straight from the problem to the answer.”

— Robert Graves

4. “One smile relieves a heart that grieves.”

— Robert Graves

5. “There’s no money in poetry, but there’s no poetry in money, either.”

— Robert Graves

6. “The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.”

— Robert Graves

7. “Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.”

— Robert Graves

8. “When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You’ll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.”

— Robert Graves

9. “The gift of independence once granted cannot be lightly taken away again.”

— Robert Graves

10. “Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight.”

— Robert Graves

11. “But that so many scholars are barbarians does not much matter so long as a few of them are ready to help with their specialized knowledge the few independent thinkers, that is to say the poets, who try to to keep civilization alive.”

— Robert Graves

12. “Take your delight in momentariness, Walk between dark and dark a shining space With the grave ’s narrowness, though not its peace.”

— Robert Graves

13. “New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.”

— Robert Graves

14. “The decline of true taste for food is the beginning of a decline in a national culture as a whole. When people have lost their authentic personal taste, they lose their personality and become the instruments of other people’s wills.”

— Robert Graves

15. “She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow.”

— Robert Graves

16. “Patriotism, in the trenches, was too remote a sentiment, and at once rejected as fit only for civilians, or prisoners. A new arrival who talked patriotism would soon be told to cut it out.”

— Robert Graves

17. “Poet, never chase the dream. Laugh yourself and turn away. Mask your hunger, let it seem Small matter if he come or stay; But when he nestles in your hand at last, Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.”

— Robert Graves

18. “No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.”

— Robert Graves

19. “A banker warned the British poet Robert Graves that one could not grow rich writing poetry. He replied that if there was no money in poetry, there was certainly no poetry in money, and so it was all even.”

— Robert Graves

20. “One gets to the heart of the matter by a series of experiences in the same pattern, but in different colors.”

— Robert Graves

21. “If I thought that any poem of mine could have been written by anyone else, either a contemporary or a forerunner, I should suppress it with a blush; and I should do the same if I ever found I were imitating myself. Every poem should be new, unexpected, inimitable, and incapable of being parodied.”

— Robert Graves

22. “When the immense drugged universe explodes In a cascade of unendurable colour And leaves us gasping naked, This is no more than the ectasy of chaos: Hold fast, with both hands, to that royal love Which alone, as we know certainly, restores Fragmentation into true being. Ecstasy of Chaos.”

— Robert Graves

23. “As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned.”

— Robert Graves

24. “Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision, Blotting out reason.”

— Robert Graves

25. “As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as I yours for ever.”

— Robert Graves

26. “I believe that every English poet should read the English classics, master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them, travel abroad, experience the horrors of sordid passion, and – if he is lucky enough – know the love of an honest woman.”

— Robert Graves

27. “So when I’m killed, don’t wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, don’t wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You’ll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you’ve read.”

— Robert Graves

28. “Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart’s desire...”

— Robert Graves

29. “When I’m killed, don’t think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there’s one thing that I know well, I’m damned if I’ll be damned to Hell!”

— Robert Graves

30. “There is one story and one story only.”

— Robert Graves

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

31. “Every fairy child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild I’d love to be a Fairy’s child.”

— Robert Graves

Featured in: Strong Quotes

32. “The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.”

— Robert Graves

33. “Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher Swept off his tall hat to the Squire’s own daughter, So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly Singing about her head, as she rode by.”

— Robert Graves

34. “As quick as boiled asparagus!”

— Robert Graves

35. “If I were a girl, I’d despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.”

— Robert Graves

36. “But give thanks, at least, that you still have Frost’s poems; and when you feel the need of solitude, retreat to the companionship of moon, water, hills and trees. Retreat, he reminds us, should not be confused with escape. And take these poems along for good luck!”

— Robert Graves

37. “Soldiers really are an extraordinary race of men, as tough as shield-leather, as superstitious as Egyptians and as sentimental as Sabine grandmothers.”

— Robert Graves

38. “Hate is a fear, and fear is rot That cankers root and fruit alike, Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not, Strike with no madness when you strike.”

— Robert Graves

39. “I was last in Rome in AD 540 when it was full of Goths and their heavy horses. It has changed a great deal since then.”

— Robert Graves

40. “With eager dragon-eyes;.”

— Robert Graves

41. “Pan’s sudden shout which terrified the Titans became proverbial and has given the word ‘panic’ to the English language.”

— Robert Graves

42. “We no longer saw the war as one between trade-rivals: its continuance seemed merely a sacrifice of the idealistic younger generation to the stupidity and self-protective alarm of the elder.”

— Robert Graves

43. “There’s a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility.”

— Robert Graves

44. “Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.”

— Robert Graves

45. “Faults in English prose derive not so much from lack of knowledge, intelligence or art as from lack of thought, patience or goodwill.”

— Robert Graves

46. “Eros aimed one of his arrows at Medea, and drove it into her heart, up to the feathers.”

— Robert Graves

47. “I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against fate.”

— Robert Graves

48. “Myths are seldom simple, and never irresponsible.”

— Robert Graves

49. “Some say that when the brothers met they were moved by true affection; that Esau forgave Jacob as they kissed and embraced; and that equal loving-kindness was shown between the many cousins, their children. Others, however, say that when Esau fell upon Jacob’s neck, he tried to bite through his jugular vein, but the neck became hard as ivory, blunting Esau’s teeth, which he therefore gnashed in futile rage.”

— Robert Graves

50. “Cuinchy bred rats. They came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly. While I stayed here with the Welsh, a new officer joined the company... When he turned in that night, he heard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand.”

— Robert Graves