Quotations

Remarks poets made beyond their poems — letters, journals, conversation — gathered as a readable library. Browse by topic or author, or search the words themselves. Currently 7,465 active remarks.

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Topic: Inspiration

Showing 24 of 38 · page 1 of 2

“When I feel, I do not write. I keep in my brain, as in a mysterious book, the impressions that have left their mark upon it.”

Original: Cuando siento no escribo. Guardo, sí, en mi cerebro escritas, como en un libro misterioso, las impresiones que han dejado en él su huella al pasar. — Bécquer describes creation as an act of recollection in which experience is allowed to settle before becoming art. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

“There is a small, material, mechanical part in every work of man, which true, original inspiration scorns in its ardent moments of rapture.”

Original: Hay una parte mecánica, pequeña y material en todas las obras del hombre, que la primitiva, la verdadera inspiración desdeña en sus ardientes momentos de arrebato. — Bécquer distinguishes the mysterious impulse of inspiration from the later mechanical labour of making art. · Letter II, Cartas literarias a una mujer (Spanish)

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

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