A good poet's made as well as born.
~ Ben Johnson - [Poetry and Poets]

A person born with an instinct for poverty.
~ Elbert Hubbard - [Poetry and Poets]

Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.
~ Philip Massinger - [Poetry and Poets]

In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
~ Franz Kafka - [Poetry and Poets]

Inside every man there is a poet who died young.
~ Stephan Kanfer - [Poetry and Poets]

It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.
~ Michel Eyquem De Montaigne - [Poetry and Poets]

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.
~ Thomas B. Macaulay - [Poetry and Poets]

Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.
~ Don Marquis - [Poetry and Poets]

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 - [Poetry and Poets]

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 - [Poetry and Poets]