“The soul is symphonic, and so is the body.”

Linking human vitality with harmony and music · Theological writing, in translation

• Beauty
• Music

“The human voice is the organ of the soul; the organs of the body are merely instruments.”

Linking speech with inner life and treating the body as its expressive instrument · Prose fiction

• Music
• Truth

“Music is the universal language of mankind.”

Presenting music as a shared form of human expression beyond national boundaries · Prose travel writing

• Beauty
• Music

“Sprung rhythm is measured by feet of from one to four syllables, regularly, and the feet are either trochees or dactyls.”

Explaining the rhythmic principle he developed to reproduce the movement of natural speech · Preface to Poems

• Music
• Poetry

“The earth has music for those who listen.”

A reflection on the beauty available to attentive minds · Philosophical writing

• Beauty
• Music
• Nature

“The duende is not in the throat; the duende climbs up inside you, from the soles of the feet.”

Describing artistic inspiration as something bodily and instinctive · Lecture, Theory and Play of the Duende

• Art
• Music

“As regarding rhythm: to compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.”

Advocates flexible, speech-like musical movement in verse · Essay “Imagisme” (1913)

• Music
• Poetry

“Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance.”

Suggesting that music retains vitality through movement and embodied rhythm · ABC of Reading

• Art
• Music

“We must cultivate our own language, our own literature, our own games, and our own music.”

Linking cultural independence with everyday artistic and communal life · Essay, The Necessity for De-Anglicising Ireland

• Art
• Memory
• Music

“Silence is more musical than any song.”

Widely attributed to Rossetti, though a precise primary source is difficult to establish · Prose remark, commonly attributed

• Beauty
• Music
• Silence

“I cannot sing; and for this reason I left the feast and went to the stable when I saw the harp coming towards me.”

Explaining Caedmon’s initial reluctance and lack of confidence as a singer · Bede, Ecclesiastical History, IV.24; translated speech

• Music
• Solitude

“The poet is not a man who has something to say, but a man who has something to sing.”

Widely attributed to Symons, though the precise primary source is not consistently cited · Essay on poetry, commonly attributed

• Music
• Poetry

“The ear is the only true judge of poetry.”

Affirming the importance of sound and rhythm in poetic judgement · Lecture, later published as the essay The Name and Nature of Poetry

• Music
• Poetry

“The experience of poetry is not the experience of the thought, but of the words.”

Drawing attention to the sensuous force of poetic language · Lecture, later published as the essay The Name and Nature of Poetry

• Music
• Poetry

“It is more striking to play a tune on the Chinese p'i-pa than on the banjo.”

Observing how rarity and unfamiliarity can be used to create an impression of distinction · Essay, A Pointless Pointillist: Ezra Pound, Scepticisms (1919)

• Art
• Music
• Novelty

“If prose could convey subtler emotional moods and impressions than poetry, why write poetry?”

Defending poetry as a uniquely subtle instrument of emotional expression · Essay, The Function of Rhythm: Ford Madox Hueffer, Scepticisms (1919)

• Art
• Music
• Poetry

“The theme will almost invariably, left to itself, call the tune. The poet is only the medium.”

Suggesting that a poem's subject naturally determines its most fitting form · Essay in The Atlantic (1964)

• Art
• Music
• Poetry

“The first thing I look for in a poem is a musical quality, a rhythm.”

Highlighting sound and rhythm as primary poetic qualities · Interview or essay, as commonly attributed

• Music
• Poetry

“Poetry is the rhythmic creation of beauty in words.”

A concise account of poetry as beauty shaped through verbal rhythm · Essay or lecture, as commonly attributed

• Beauty
• Music
• Poetry