42 Poetic Quotes For Inspiration

In a world where words wield the power to uplift, inspire, and transform, poetry stands as a beacon of profound expression and timeless wisdom. Whether you are seeking to spark creativity, gain insight, or find solace in the beauty of language, poetic quotes have the unique ability to touch the soul and resonate deeply. Our curated collection of the top 42 poetic quotes offers a journey into the heart of human experience, celebrating the artistry of language and the universality of emotion. Dive into this reservoir of inspiration and allow these timeless words to illuminate your path and awaken your imagination.

1. “Cease, stranger, cease those witching notes, The art of syren choirs; Hush the seductive voice that floats Across the trembling wires. Music's ethereal power was given Not to dissolve our clay, But draw Promethean beams from heaven To purge the dross away.” - John Henry Newman

2. “We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.” - Milan Kundera

3. “Sometimes I look back and I am shocked. Everyday of my life I have prepared for success, worked for it, waited for it, and you don't notice how the days pass until nearly a lifetime is finished. Then it hits you--the thing you have been waiting for has already gone by. And it was going in the other direction. It's like I've been waiting on the wrong side of the road for a bus that was already full." p. 265” - Monica Ali

4. “Descobri a minha estrela. Ela é bela e graciosa. Elegante e divina. O meu riso no inverno. Ela é corajosa e forte. Arrojada e tentadora. Diferente de qualquer outra no universo e não posso tocar-lhe. Nem me atrevo a tentar.” - Sherrilyn Kenyon

5. “… in these new days and in these new pages a philosophical tradition of the spontaneity of speculation kind has been rekindled on the sacred isle of Éire, regardless of its creative custodian never having been taught how to freely speculate, how to profoundly question, and how to playfully define. Spontaneity of speculation being synonymous with the philosophical-poetic, the philosophical-poetic with the rural philosopher-poet, and by roundelay the rural philosopher-poet thee with the spontaneity of speculation be. And by the way of the rural what may we say? A philosopher-poet of illimitable space we say. Iohannes Scottus Ériugena the metaphor of old salutes you; salutes your lyrical ear and your skilful strumming of the rippling harp. (Source: Hearing in the Write, Canto 19, Ivy-muffled)” - Richard Mc Sweeney

6. “There are so many things to say; so many things that can't really be said. So much has happened; so little has changed. We have so many words prepared; so many words are too hard to actually say. A few days have passed; this pain has been here for years. We don't know where to go from here; our future has always been in our minds. Moments of peace with those who constantly argue; fights with those that usually bring peace. There are so many things to say; so many things that can't really be said.” - Alysha Speer

7. “Maybe we've lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we've found each other... I know I've spent each life before this one searching for you. Not someone like you but you, for your soul and mine must always come together.” - Nicholas Sparks

8. “So I stared out at that cold window, watching my breath collect on the glass, trying not to think about my life after the thaw.” - Ally Carter

9. “and I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. She was only the faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet I had rolled myself upon with such cries in the past; an echo on the brink of a russet ravine, with a far wood under a white sky, and brown leaves choking the brook, and one last cricket in the crisp weeds... but thank God it was not that echo alone that I worshipped. What I used to pamper among the tangled vines of my heart, mon grand pch radieux, had dwindled to its essence: sterile and selfish vice, all that I cancelled and cursed. You may jeer at me, and threaten to clear the court, but until I am gagged and halfthrottled, I will shout my poor truth. I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another’s child, but still gray-eyed, still sooty-lashed, still auburn and almond, still Carmencita, still mine; Changeons de vie, ma Carmen, allons vivre quelque, part o nous ne serons jamais spars; Ohio? The wilds of Massachusetts? No matter, even if those eyes of hers would fade to myopic fish, and her nipples swell and crack, and her lovely young velvety delicate delta be tainted and torneven then I would go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the mere sound of your raucous young voice, my Lolita.” - Vladimir Nabokov

10. “It is true that I can trip over anything and nothing – a speck of dust, a patch of sunlight, an idea. I move through life like a person with one eye, through a landscape that looks flat, but is really tricked out with hidden depths and shallows. It didn’t use to be so, but no matter. I navigate the world well enough in my own way.” - Franny Billingsley

11. “He was outwardly calm but inwardly bleeding to death.” - Matthew Pearl

12. “‎Pleasure is wild and sweet. She likes purple flowers. She loves the sun and the wind and the night sky. She carries a silver bowl full of liquid moonlight. She has a cat named Midnight with stars on his paws. Many people mistrust Pleasure, and even more misunderstand her. For a long time I could barely stand to be in ...the same room with her...” - J. Ruth Gendler

13. “Pain is subtle. He has cold grey fingers. His voice is horse from crying & screaming... When people try to avoid him, he follows them silently & turns upas the bartender, or the bus driver... Pain has an elaborate filing system for keeping track of everyone... Pain respects people who are willing to take risks. If you... face him directly, he will give you a special ointment so your wounds don't fester.” - J. Ruth Gendler

14. “Beauty is startling. She wears a gold shawl in the summer and sells seven kinds of honey at the flea market. She is young and old at once, my daughter and my grandmother. In school she excelled in mathematics and poetry. . . Beauty will dance with anyone who is brave enough to ask her.” - J. Ruth Gendler

15. “It's a terrible thing to be alone -- yes it is -- it is -- but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath -- as terrible as you like -- but a mask.” - Katherine Mansfield

16. “I make sacrifices in reward of trinkets for my gilded cage.” - Solange nicole

17. “I love with love, so that we all may love." ~ Amunhotep El Bey” - Amunhotep El Bey

18. “I'd like to hear five recordings of Louis Armstrong playing and singing "What Did I Do to Be so Black and Blue"-all at the same time. Sometimes now I listen to Louis while I have my favorite dessert of vanilla ice cream and sloe gin. I pour the red liquid over the white mound, watching it glisten and the vapor rising as Louis bends that military instrument into a beam of lyrical sound.” - Ralph Ellison

19. “Kept dreaming of this spot she had on her neck, this tiny country. I wanted to visit, to paint a picture of what I found there, a wall with a road map of her skin.” - Cath Crowley

20. “The displacement of water is equal to the something of something.” - William Faulkner

21. “He who has not been bitten by the serpents of light and snapped at by the wolves of darkness will always be deceived by the days and the nights.” - Khalil Gibran

22. “Blinded by the opaque veil of mortality, her eyes are always sealed, like a tomb She wants to know- wants to feel that fire, the brightness of the moon So she searches for light, only to realize its in her, like an ember equipped to ignite. ” - Jessica Sorensen

23. “Like a feather in a dust storm, with no direction The Raven flies through life, helpless and omitted Until night declares and the wind expires. Then it flies to the land of stones and etchings And becomes an Ember, breaking away” - Jessica Sorensen

24. “I write the word solitude on my wall and then below it: Do you know me at all? Are my words just air? Is my heart easy to spare?” - Jessica Sorensen

25. “He felt the need for something which he could attach his floating heart to; the heart that tugged at his side; the heart that seemed filled with spiced amorous gales every evening about this time.” - Virginia Woolf

26. “One thing all the stories agreed on: King Robert was dead. The bells in the seven towers of the Great Sept of Baelor had tolled for a day and a night, the thunder of their grief rolling across the city in a bronze tide. They only rang the bells like that for the death of a king, a tanner's boy told Arya.” - George R.R. Martin

27. “The grave casts long shadows, Iron Lord," Mirri said. "Long and dark, and in the end no light can hold them back.” - George R.R. Martin

28. “Nema tih reči koje mogu nadomestiti šibanje godina u lice, ni od najbolje priče ne može se isplesti mreža za hvatanje vremena...” - Đorđe Balašević

29. “Provukla se kroz gužvu naizgled lako (kao da se priseća polke?), gaseći cipelicama neke zamišljene pikavce na podnom mozaiku, ali ja sam znao kako joj teško pada tih par koraka ka meni. U zadnji čas sam odlučio da ipak ne kažem glasno da ih je možda prekasno napravila? Rastojanje između nas definitivno se više nije moglo preći tek tako, prostim svakodnevnim koracima...” - Đorđe Balašević

30. “Bože moj...Prošao sam kroz Vukovar mnogo puta...(...)Kad sam dolazio sa zapadne strane, iz Italije, sa mora, iz Zagreba ili Ljubljane, tu sam prvi put nailazio na putokaz za Novi Sad, i, iako je kraj imena moje varoši čitko pisalo ''82 km'', tog momenta sam, iz bezbroj razloga, uvek računao da sam stigao Kući?Dudule je u pravu, liče, još kako liče...Ne samo zbog Dunava, bokora zelenila, austrougarskih kućerina i rasipnički širokih ulica, već (i uglavnom), zbog pitomosti, zbog onog retkog osjećaja koji mi se javljao samo u naročitim gradovima, da bi tu i u tri po ponoći mogao prošetati s Onom Koju Volim, ne zazirući od automobila koji usporavaju, i ne prelazeći na drugu stranu kad neko naiđe u susret...Puno puta je vukovarski vazduh pirnuo pod svodovima mojih pluća, svirala je tu ona ista muzika na koju i ja plešem svoj život, mirni ljudi i stabilne lađe, tesne suknje i komotne čarde, obala i gimnazija, korzo i pozorište, sasvim dovoljno za pametnog čoveka...A opet...Bojim se da na taj gradić nikad više neću pomisliti onako kako ga se sećam, nego onako kako mi se prikazao u sledećoj Duletovoj tišini, u onoj poslednjoj, najdužoj, koju nisam ni uspeo da odbrojim do kraja, jer je otišao nenadano, ne rekavši pozdrav...” - Đorđe Balašević

31. “With these words there came the rending scream of a shattered stirk and an angry troubling of the branches as the poor madman percolated through the sieve of a sharp yew, a wailing black meteor hurtling through green clouds, a human prickles.” - Flann O'Brien

32. “Did no one tell him that pain lives in this sand, dug in and watered with our blood?” - Maggie Stiefvater

33. “a young man was hung by a rope made of Stalingrad snow” - Markus Zusak

34. “Each moment is a poetic expression of the undefined. As long as it remains undefined, it has all the beauty of the world and it steps inside to nurture your dreams.” - Grigoris Deoudis

35. “And the most poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from the chorus.” - Vladimir Nabokov

36. “Some people were destined to have a significant other.Some people were destined for greatness.But few others were destined to be soldiers, to be warriors, to be alone.That is me.It is not a path that i have chosen, but it is a path that i must walk.Some may think this is sad, but i have come to peace with it.Because i am and always will be a soldier, a warrior...Alone.” - Chris Söderström

37. “It almost felt like we were driving in our own world--like we were inside a snow globe--and there was music and sunlight and smiles and laughter floating in the air. And it was all self-contained in a beautiful bubble filled with glittering water that made things seem a little unreal, a little dream-like and hazy.” - Melissa C. Walker

38. “Painting is so poetic, while sculpture is more logical and scientific and makes you worry about gravity.” - Damien Hirst

39. “I always grow poetic when I am lying to myself.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

40. “I found it easier to stare out into the infinite blackness, away from the fire burning itself out in his eyes.” - Heather Heffner

41. “Do not wander in the deeps,Where the Shriker's shadow creeps.When he rises from beneath,Beware the Sharpness of his teeth.” - Janet Lee Carey

42. “What would your shoes say about the things you do everyday?” - Sherley Mondesir-Prescott