31 Inspiring Poem Quotes

Poetry has an unparalleled ability to stir the soul, offering solace, inspiration, and reflection. In just a few lines, a poem can capture emotions and thoughts that often elude ordinary language. If you're looking to delve into the world of verse and find words that resonate deeply, our curated collection of the top 31 inspiring poem quotes is a perfect place to start. These handpicked selections distill the essence of some of the most profound works, inviting you to explore the timeless wisdom and beauty of poetry. Whether you seek motivation, comfort, or a fresh perspective, these quotes promise to ignite your imagination and touch your heart.

1. “Saints have no moderation, nor do poets, just exuberance.” - Anne Sexton

2. “He drew a circle that shut me out-Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.But love and I had the wit to win:We drew a circle and took him In!” - Edwin Markham

3. “I have been one acquainted with the night.I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.I have outwalked the furthest city light.I have looked down the saddest city lane.I have passed by the watchman on his beatAnd dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.” - Robert Frost

4. “To see her is a picture—To hear her is a tune—To know her an IntemperanceAs innocent as June—To know her not—Affliction—To own her for a FriendA warmth as near as if the SunWere shining in your Hand.” - Emily Dickinson

5. “For I dance And drink and sing,Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing.If thought is lifeAnd strength and breathAnd the wantOf thought is deathThen am IA happy flyIf I liveOr if I die” - William Blake

6. “Twas the night before Thanksgiving. All the food's in the oven. And I'm in the bedroom performin' self lovin'.” - Craig Ferguson

7. “You sit at the edge of the world,I am in a crater that's no more.Words without lettersStanding in the shadow of the door.The moon shines down on a sleeping lizard,Little fish rain from the sky.Outside the window there are soldiers,steeling themselves to die.(Refrain)Kafka sits in a chair by the shore,Thinking for the pendulum that moves the world, it seems.When your heart is closed,The shadow of the unmoving Sphinx,Becomes a knife that pierces your dreams.The drowning girl's fingersSearch for the entrance stone, and more.Lifting the hem of her azure dress,She gazes --at Kafka on the shore” - Haruki Murakami

8. “Whatever is produced in haste goes hastily to waste.” - saadi

9. “The whole idea of it makes me feellike I'm coming down with something,something worse than any stomach acheor the headaches I get from reading in bad light--a kind of measles of the spirit,a mumps of the psyche,a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.You tell me it is too early to be looking back,but that is because you have forgottenthe perfect simplicity of being oneand the beautiful complexity introduced by two.But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.At four I was an Arabian wizard.I could make myself invisibleby drinking a glass of milk a certain way.At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.But now I am mostly at the windowwatching the late afternoon light.Back then it never fell so solemnlyagainst the side of my tree house,and my bicycle never leaned against the garageas it does today,all the dark blue speed drained out of it.This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,time to turn the first big number.It seems only yesterday I used to believethere was nothing under my skin but light.If you cut me I could shine.But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,I skin my knees. I bleed.” - Billy Collins

10. “Don't be polite.Bite in.Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that may run down your chin. It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are. You do not need a knife or fork or spoon.For there is no coreor stemor rindor pitor seedor skinto throw away.” - Eve Merriam

11. “I.Don't trace out your profile--forget your side view--all that is outer stuff.II.Look for your other halfwho walks always next to youand tends to be who you aren't.” - Antonio Machado

12. “It is when things are at worst you will get the best.” - Santosh Kalwar

13. “A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,Lingering onward dreamilyIn an evening of July —Children three that nestle near,Eager eye and willing ear,Pleased a simple tale to hear —Long has paled that sunny sky:Echoes fade and memories die:Autumn frosts have slain July.Still she haunts me, phantomwise,Alice moving under skiesNever seen by waking eyes.Children yet, the tale to hear,Eager eye and willing ear,Lovingly shall nestle near.In a Wonderland they lie,Dreaming as the days go by,Dreaming as the summers die:Ever drifting down the stream —Lingering in the golden gleam —Life, what is it but a dream?” - Lewis Carroll

14. “An Irish Airman foresees his DeathI Know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate Those that I guard I do not love, My country is Kiltartan Cross,My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public man, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath,A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.” - William Butler Yeats

15. “I have studied many timesThe marble which was chiseled for me—A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.In truth it pictures not my destinationBut my life.For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.And now I know that we must lift the sailAnd catch the winds of destinyWherever they drive the boat.To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,But life without meaning is the tortureOf restlessness and vague desire—It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.” - Edgar Lee Masters

16. “Grodekفي المساء غابة الخريف ملآى بأصواتأسلحة الموت، الحقول الذهبيةوالبحيرات الزرقاء، عبر الشمس المظلمةالتي تغرب، الليل يجمع فيهمجندون يحتضرون، الحيوانات تصرخبأفواهها المنفجرة.حتى الغيمة حمراء، حيث الله غاضب،الدم المراق نفسه وصل إلى بيته، بصمتيحشد، رباطة جأش مارس في قيعان الصفصاف،كل الطرقات تمتد إلى القبر الأسود.تحت الأغصان الذهبية في الليل والنجومأخت الظلال تترنح عبر الأيكة المنكمشة،لتحيي أرواح الأبطال، برؤوسهم المدماة،ومن القصب أصوات مزامير الخريف الكئيبة تعلو.أيتها المصيبة الأبية! مذبحك البرونزي،شعلة الروح الملتهبة لقمت اليوم بالمزيد من،أحفاد مقبلون” - Georg Trakl

17. “The longer a life, the challenge is not the distance between destinations, but the difficulty of travelling light. My soul’s a portmanteau packed full, one half filled with what was, the other with what is, what should be.” - Jamie A. Hughes

18. “That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face - that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem.” - G.K. Chesterton

19. “If I should have a daughter…“Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”She’s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I’ve tried.And “Baby,” I’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.”But I know that she will anyway, so instead I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me. That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away.You will put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the “star” in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.“Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.” - Sarah Kay

20. “A Faint Music by Robert HassMaybe you need to write a poem about grace.When everything broken is broken,and everything dead is dead,and the hero has looked into the mirror with complete contempt,and the heroine has studied her face and its defectsremorselessly, and the pain they thought might,as a token of their earnestness, release them from themselveshas lost its novelty and not released them,and they have begun to think, kindly and distantly,watching the others go about their days—likes and dislikes, reasons, habits, fears—that self-love is the one weedy stalkof every human blossoming, and understood,therefore, why they had been, all their lives,in such a fury to defend it, and that no one—except some almost inconceivable saint in his poolof poverty and silence—can escape this violent, automaticlife’s companion ever, maybe then, ordinary light,faint music under things, a hovering like grace appears.As in the story a friend told once about the timehe tried to kill himself. His girl had left him.Bees in the heart, then scorpions, maggots, and then ash.He climbed onto the jumping girder of the bridge,the bay side, a blue, lucid afternoon.And in the salt air he thought about the word “seafood,”that there was something faintly ridiculous about it.No one said “landfood.” He thought it was degrading to the rainbow perchhe’d reeled in gleaming from the cliffs, the black rockbass,scales like polished carbon, in beds of kelpalong the coast—and he realized that the reason for the wordwas crabs, or mussels, clams. Otherwisethe restaurants could just put “fish” up on their signs,and when he woke—he’d slept for hours, curled upon the girder like a child—the sun was going downand he felt a little better, and afraid. He put on the jackethe’d used for a pillow, climbed over the railingcarefully, and drove home to an empty house.There was a pair of her lemon yellow pantieshanging on a doorknob. He studied them. Much-washed.A faint russet in the crotch that made him sickwith rage and grief. He knew more or lesswhere she was. A flat somewhere on Russian Hill.They’d have just finished making love. She’d have tearsin her eyes and touch his jawbone gratefully. “God,”she’d say, “you are so good for me.” Winking lights,a foggy view downhill toward the harbor and the bay.“You’re sad,” he’d say. “Yes.” “Thinking about Nick?”“Yes,” she’d say and cry. “I tried so hard,” sobbing now,“I really tried so hard.” And then he’d hold her for a while—Guatemalan weavings from his fieldwork on the wall—and then they’d fuck again, and she would cry some more,and go to sleep.And he, he would play that sceneonce only, once and a half, and tell himselfthat he was going to carry it for a very long timeand that there was nothing he could dobut carry it. He went out onto the porch, and listenedto the forest in the summer dark, madrone barkcracking and curling as the cold came up.It’s not the story though, not the friendleaning toward you, saying “And then I realized—,”which is the part of stories one never quite believes.I had the idea that the world’s so full of painit must sometimes make a kind of singing.And that the sequence helps, as much as order helps—First an ego, and then pain, and then the singing” - Robert Hass

21. “You ask me why I don't speakNot a word at willBut write so much worth well over a mill'Well I value words like I value kissesA sober one, a closer one penetrates the heartDarling it's how it mends it” - Criss Jami

22. “JARAKdan Adam turun di hutan-hutanmengabur dalam dongengandan kita tiba-tiba di sinitengadah ke langit; kosong sepi” - Sapardi Djoko Damono

23. “You do not seem to realize that beauty is a liability ratherthanan asset - that in view of the fact that spirit creates formwe are justified in supposingthat you must have brains. For you, a symbol of theunit, stiff and sharp,conscious of surpassing by dint of native superiority andliking for everythingself-dependent, anything anambitious civilization might produce: for you, unaided, toattempt through sheerreserve, to confuse presumptions resulting fromobservation, is idle. You cannot make usthink you a delightful happen-so. But rose, if you arebrilliant, itis not because your petals are the without-which-nothingof pre-eminence. Would you not, minusthorns, be a what-is-this, a mereperculiarity? They are not proof against a worm, theelements, or mildew;but what about the predatory hand? What is brilliancewithout co-ordination? Guarding theinfinitesimal pieces of your mind, compelling audience tothe remark that it is better to be forgotten than to be re-membered too violently,your thorns are the best part of you.” - Marianne Moore

24. “If the world stops spinning, slowing to a crawl. I will continue to dream of you. Until, I no longer dream at all.” - Jessica de la Davies

25. “The future belongs to all who, refusing to look back at the past move ahead with the clock as it ticks.” - Odo Simon Agbo

26. “Go and catch a falling star,Get with child a mandrake root,Tell me where all past years are,Or who cleft the Devil's foot,Teach me to hear mermaids singing,Or to keep off envy's stinging, And find What windServes to advance an honest mind.If thou be'st born to strange sights,Things invisible to see,Ride ten thousand days and nights,Till Age snow white hairs on thee,Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me,All strange wonders that befell thee, And swear, No whereLives a woman true and fair.” - John Donne

27. “Let me also say I wanna make you sandwhiches,And soup,And peanut butter cookies,Though, the truth is peanutbutter is actually really bad for you 'cause they grow peanuts in old cotton fields to clean the toxins out of the soil,But hey, you like peanutbutter and I like you!” - Andrea Gibson

28. “Up the still, glistening beaches,Up the creeks we will hie,Over banks of bright seaweedThe ebb-tide leaves dry.We will gaze, from the sand-hills,At the white, sleeping town;At the church on the hill-side—And then come back down.Singing: "There dwells a loved one,But cruel is she!She left lonely for everThe kings of the sea.(from poem 'The Forsaken Merman')” - Matthew Arnold

29. “I have a fairy by my side Which says I must not sleep, When once in pain I loudly cried It said "You must not weep" If, full of mirth, I smile and grin, It says "You must not laugh" When once I wished to drink some gin It said "You must not quaff". When once a meal I wished to taste It said "You must not bite" When to the wars I went in haste It said "You must not fight". "What may I do?" at length I cried, Tired of the painful task. The fairy quietly replied, And said "You must not ask". Moral: "You mustn't.” - Lewis Carroll

30. “ví dù người có phụ tathì ta chỉ nguyện thành ra con bòcon bò rất ít so đoyêu ai chỉ biết lò dò đi theodù cho đứa đó lật kèo” - Nguyễn Thiên Ngân

31. “[...] the body is what we lean toward,tensing as it darts, dancing away.but it's the voice that enters us. evensaying nothing. even saying nothingover and over absently to itself” - Tracy K. Smith