Remarks by William Cullen Bryant | V2Melody Quotations

“The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine and animadvert upon all political institutions, is a right so clear and certain.”

Defending open political discussion as a fundamental liberty · Editorial, The Death of Lovejoy, 18 November 1837

“A herd of prairie-wolves will enter a field of melons and quarrel about the division of the spoils as fiercely and noisily as so many politicians.”

A humorous comparison between political rivalry and quarrelling wolves · Travel letter, Letters of a Traveller

“Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.”

Presenting hardship as a severe but formative teacher · Speech at a New York press banquet, 15 December 1851

“This is the enthusiasm that is the parent of poetry.”

Locating poetry's origin in deeply felt enthusiasm · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“By eloquence I understand those appeals to our moral perceptions that produce emotion as soon as they are uttered.”

Defining eloquence through its immediate moral and emotional force · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“Eloquence is the poetry of prose; poetry is the eloquence of verse.”

Neatly linking expressive prose and verse through eloquence · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“The best riches of the earth are produced on its surface, and we need no reasoning to teach us the folly of a people who should leave its harvest ungathered to dig for its ores.”

A metaphor for recognising wisdom that lies plainly before us · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“The elements of moral truth are few and simple, but their combinations with human actions are as innumerable and diversified as the combinations of language.”

Showing how simple principles become complex in lived experience · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“Poetry is the worst mask in the world behind which folly and stupidity could attempt to hide their features.”

A sharp warning that verse cannot conceal weak thinking · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“To write fine poetry requires intellectual faculties of the highest order, and among these, not the least important, is the faculty of reason.”

Rejecting the idea that poetry belongs to feeling alone · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“Strong feeling is always a sure guide. It rarely offends against good taste, because it instinctively chooses the most effectual means of communicating itself to others.”

Trusting sincere emotion to discover its own expressive form · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“Important, therefore, as may be the office of the imagination in poetry, the great spring of poetry is emotion.”

Placing emotion at the source of poetic creation · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“The language of passion is naturally figurative, but its figures are only employed to heighten the intensity of the expression.”

Linking figurative language to the natural expression of strong feeling · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“The feelings and the imagination, when skilfully touched, act reciprocally on each other.”

Showing how emotion and imagination strengthen one another · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“The truth is, that poetry which does not find its way to the heart is scarcely deserving of the name.”

Arguing that genuine poetry must reach the emotions · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“The most beautiful poetry is that which takes the strongest hold of the feelings, and, if it is really the most beautiful, then it is poetry in the highest sense.”

Making emotional power central to poetic beauty · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite it the most powerfully and delightfully.”

Describing poetry as the deliberate shaping of thought into imaginative experience · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“The imagination is the most active and the least susceptible of fatigue of all the faculties of the human mind.”

Celebrating the extraordinary endurance of the imaginative faculty · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“It is to the very limitation of this power of language, as it seems to me, that Poetry owes her magic.”

Finding poetic power in what language leaves partly unsaid · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“I would rather call poetry a suggestive art. Its power of affecting the mind is by pure suggestion.”

Defining poetry as an art that awakens rather than merely describes · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

“Genius is nothing more than the power of making continuous efforts.”

Locating creative achievement in persistence rather than inspiration · Commonly attributed remark

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