20 verified voices in Literature & poetry · 12 shown here, a fresh sample each day
“There is one indubitable indication distinguishing real art from its counterfeit, namely, the infectiousness of art.”
— Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? (trans. Aylmer Maude) (1897)
“But I fear my story fatigues you. I would like to learn. Could you tell me how to grow, or is it unconveyed, like melody or witchcraft?”
— Emily Dickinson, Letters to T. W. Higginson (in 'Emily Dickinson's Letters', The Atlantic Monthly) (1862)
“To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself then, by means of movements, lines, colours, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling—this is the activity of art.”
— Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? (trans. Aylmer Maude) (1897)
“It is the powerful language of resistance—it is the dialect of common sense. It is the speech of the proud and melancholy races, and of all who aspire. It is the chosen tongue to express growth, faith, self-esteem, freedom, justice, equality, friendliness, amplitude, prudence, decision, and courage. It is the medium that shall wellnigh express the inexpressible.”
— Walt Whitman, Complete Prose Works (1855)
“It should lay us under a spell with its first word, and we should only wake, refreshed, with its last.”
— Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader (1925) (1925)
“For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of a plant or an animal it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Poet (Essays: Second Series) (1844)
“Thank you for the surgery; it was not so painful as I supposed. I bring you others, as you ask, though they might not differ. While my thought is undressed, I can make the distinction; but when I put them in the gown, they look alike and numb.”
— Emily Dickinson, Letters to T. W. Higginson (in 'Emily Dickinson's Letters', The Atlantic Monthly) (1862)
“I think 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, Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends (ed. Sidney Colvin) (1818)
“For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; but though this be true, Poems to which any value can be attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility had also thought long and deeply.”
— William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800) (1800)
“But most of all is the degree of infectiousness of art increased by the degree of sincerity in the artist. As soon as the spectator, hearer, or reader feels that the artist is infected by his own production, and writes, sings, or plays for himself and not merely to act on others, this mental condition of the artist infects the receiver”
— Leo Tolstoy, What is Art? (trans. Aylmer Maude) (1897)
“We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us, and, if we do not agree, seems to put its hand into its breeches pocket. 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, Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends (ed. Sidney Colvin) (1818)
“You, I am sure, will forgive me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore.”
— John Keats, Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends (ed. Sidney Colvin) (1820)
Every quote in this collection was verified
against its original public-domain source — the letter, journal, poem or treatise it
truly comes from. No internet folklore, no misattributions.
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