Quotes by Stephen Spender

“The greatest of all human delusions is that there is a tangible goal, and not just direction towards an ideal aim. The idea that a goal can be attained perpetually frustrates human beings, who are ...”

“Although Poets are vain and ambitious, their vanity and ambition are of the purest kind attainable in this world. They are ambitious to be accepted for what they altimately are as revealed in their...”

“Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.”

“When you read and understand a poem comprehending its rich and formal meanings then you master chaos a little.”

“Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun And left the vivid air signed with their honour.”

“When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse, My mind a top whipped by the lashes Of your rhetoric, windy of course.”

“When you read and understand a poem comprehending its rich and formal meanings then you master chaos a little.”

“The ultimate aim of politics is not politics, but the activities which can be practised within the political framework of the State. Therefore an effective statement of these activities — e.g. scie...”

“Since we are what we are, what shall we be But what we are? We are, we have Six feet and seventy years, to see The light, and then resign it for the grave.”

“I am very honoured by your wanting to write a life of me. But the fact is I regard my life as rather a failure in the only thing in which I wanted it to succeed. I have not written the books I ough...”

“I simply had to get there.”

“There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife — a tyrannical midwife.”

“I'm struggling at the end to get out of the valley of hectoring youth, journalistic middle age, imposture, moneymaking, public relations, bad writing, mental confusion.”

“History is the ship carrying living memories to the future.”

“I say, stamping the words with emphasis, Drink from here energy and only energy”

“Eye, gazelle, delicate wanderer, Drinker of horizon’s fluid line; Ear that suspends on a chord The spirit drinking timelessness; Touch, love, all senses...”

“No one Shall hunger: Man shall spend equally. Our goal which we compel: Man shall be man.”

“Death to the killers, bringing light to life.”

“After the first powerful plain manifesto The black statement of pistons, without more fuss But gliding like a queen, she leaves the station.”

“Ah, like a comet through flame she moves entranced Wrapt in her music no bird song, no, nor bough Breaking with honey buds, shall ever equal.”