62 Inspiring Quotes From Poems

Poetry has a unique way of distilling the complexities of human experience into a few evocative lines. The rhythm, imagery, and emotion woven into poems can touch our hearts and inspire our souls like few other forms of expression. Within the vast world of verse, certain lines stand out for their ability to uplift, motivate, and provoke thought. In this collection, we've gathered 62 inspiring quotes from poems that have left an indelible mark on readers across generations. Whether you're seeking solace, encouragement, or a spark of creativity, these poetic gems offer a timeless wellspring of wisdom and insight. Dive in and let the magic of poetry ignite your spirit.

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

2. “Poems are never finished - just abandoned” - Paul Valery

3. “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

4. “to live in this worldyou must be ableto do three thingsto love what is mortal;to hold itagainst your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it go” - Mary Oliver

5. “Roads Go Ever OnRoads go ever ever on,Over rock and under tree,By caves where never sun has shone,By streams that never find the sea;Over snow by winter sown,And through the merry flowers of June,Over grass and over stone,And under mountains in the moon.Roads go ever ever on,Under cloud and under star.Yet feet that wandering have goneTurn at last to home afar.Eyes that fire and sword have seen,And horror in the halls of stoneLook at last on meadows green,And trees and hills they long have known.The Road goes ever on and onDown from the door where it began.Now far ahead the Road has gone,And I must follow, if I can,Pursuing it with eager feet,Until it joins some larger way,Where many paths and errands meet.The Road goes ever on and onDown from the door where it began.Now far ahead the Road has gone,And I must follow, if I can,Pursuing it with weary feet,Until it joins some larger way,Where many paths and errands meet.And whither then? I cannot say.The Road goes ever on and onOut from the door where it began.Now far ahead the Road has gone.Let others follow, if they can!Let them a journey new begin.But I at last with weary feetWill turn towards the lighted inn,My evening-rest and sleep to meet.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

6. “...like that star of the waning summer who beyond all stars rises bathed in the ocean stream to glitter in brilliance.” - Homer

7. “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

8. “Parting is all we know of Heaven,and all we need of Hell.” - Emily Dickenson

9. “Sour MilkYou can't make itturn sweetagain. Onceit was an innocent colorlike the flowers of wild strawberries,and its texture was simplewould pass through a clean cheesecloth,its taste was fresh.And nowwith nothing more guilty that the passage of timeto chide it with,the same substancehas turned sour and lumpy.The sour milkmakes interesting & delicious doughs,can be carried to a further state of bacterial actionto create new foods,can in its own rightbe considered complicated and more interesting in textureto one who studies it closely,like a map of the world.Butto most of us:it is spoiled.Sour.We throw it out,down the drain-not in the backyard-careful not to spill anybecause the smell is strong.A good cook would be shocked with the waste.But we do not live in a world of good cooks.I am the milk.Time passes.You cannot make it turn sweetagain.I sit guiltily on the refrigerator shelftrembling with hope for a cookwho dreams of waffles,biscuits, dumplingsand other delicious breadsfearing the modern housewifewho will lift me off the shelf and with one deft twistof a wrist...you know the rest.You are the milk.When it is your turnremember,there is nothing more than the passage of timewe can chide you with.” - Diane Wakoski

10. “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

11. “Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines he wrote a poemAnd he called it "Chops" because that was the name of his dogAnd that's what it was all aboutAnd his teacher gave him an A and a gold starAnd his mother hung it on the kitchen door and read it to his auntsThat was the year Father Tracy took all the kids to the zooAnd he let them sing on the busAnd his little sister was born with tiny toenails and no hairAnd his mother and father kissed a lotAnd the girl around the corner sent him aValentine signed with a row of X's and he had to ask his father what the X's meantAnd his father always tucked him in bed at nightAnd was always there to do itOnce on a piece of white paper with blue lines he wrote a poemAnd he called it "Autumn" because that was the name of the seasonAnd that's what it was all aboutAnd his teacher gave him an A and asked him to write more clearlyAnd his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because of its new paintAnd the kids told him that Father Tracy smoked cigarsAnd left butts on the pewsAnd sometimes they would burn holesThat was the year his sister got glasses with thick lenses and black framesAnd the girl around the corner laughed when he asked her to go see Santa ClausAnd the kids told him why his mother and father kissed a lotAnd his father never tucked him in bed at nightAnd his father got mad when he cried for him to do it.Once on a paper torn from his notebook he wrote a poemAnd he called it "Innocence: A Question" because that was the question about his girlAnd that's what it was all aboutAnd his professor gave him an A and a strange steady lookAnd his mother never hung it on the kitchen door because he never showed herThat was the year that Father Tracy diedAnd he forgot how the end of the Apostle's Creed wentAnd he caught his sister making out on the back porchAnd his mother and father never kissed or even talkedAnd the girl around the corner wore too much makeupThat made him cough when he kissed her but he kissed her anyway because that was the thing to doAnd at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed his father snoring soundlyThat's why on the back of a brown paper bag he tried another poemAnd he called it "Absolutely Nothing"Because that's what it was really all aboutAnd he gave himself an A and a slash on each damned wristAnd he hung it on the bathroom door because this time he didn't think he could reach the kitchen.” - Stephen Chbosky

12. “I heard of a manwho says words so beautifullythat if he only speaks their namewomen give themselves to him.If I am dumb beside your bodywhile silence blossoms like tumors on our lipsit is because I hear a man climb stairsand clear his throat outside our door.” - Leonard Cohen

13. “I saw the spiders marching through the air,Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed dayIn latter August when the hayCame creaking to the barn. But whereThe wind is westerly,Where gnarled November makes the spiders flyInto the apparitions of the sky,They purpose nothing but their ease and dieUrgently beating east to sunrise and the sea;” - Robert Lowell

14. “The only sea I saw Was the seesaw sea With you riding on it. Lie down, lie easy. Let me shipwreck in your thighs.” - Dylan Thomas

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

16. “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

17. “When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloudAnd goes down burning into the gulf below,No voice in nature is heard to cry aloudAt what has happened. Birds, at least must knowIt is the change to darkness in the sky.Murmuring something quiet in her breast,One bird begins to close a faded eye;Or overtaken too far from his nest,Hurrying low above the grove, some waifSwoops just in time to his remembered tree.At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!Now let the night be dark for all of me.Let the night be too dark for me to seeInto the future. Let what will be, be.” - Robert Frost

18. “A foolish man question: “what is love?” A madman answer: “Love is an omnipresent attribute of human life. Our appetite will always be unfulfilled for love. It is better for us because without it, earth will not rotate, seasons will not change, birds will not sing and life will not exit.” What do you think?” - Santosh Kalwar

19. “TO what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough. You can no longer quiet me with the redness Of little leaves opening stickily. I know what I know. The sun is hot on my neck as I observe The spikes of the crocus. The smell of the earth is good. It is apparent that there is no death. But what does that signify? Not only under ground are the brains of men Eaten by maggots. Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.” - Edna St. Vincent Millay

20. “I will never hurt you.I will always help you.If you are hungryIll give you my food.If you are frightenedI am your friend.I love you now.And love does not end.” - Orson Scott Card

21. “Come sleep with me: We won't make Love, Love will make us.” - Julio Cortazar

22. “شب همه شب * شب همه شب شکسته خواب به چشممگوش بر زنگ کاروانستمبا صداهای نیم زنده زدور.همعنان گشته همزبان هستم.*جاده اما ز همه کس خالی استریخته بر سر آوار آواراین منم مانده به زندان شب تیره که بازشب همه شبگوش بر زنگ کاروانستم” - Nima Yushij

23. “آسمان مال من است پنجره؛عشق؛هوا؛فکر؛زمین مال من استچه اهمیت دارد گاه اگر می رویند قارچ های غربت((سهراب سپهری))” - سهراب سپهری

24. “My Personalityunfolding before youlike a Swiss Army knife.” - Katerina Stoykova Klemer

25. “Qui croitPouvoir faire du mielSans partager le destin des abeilles?” - Muriel Barbery

26. “You must find a boy your own age. Someone mild and beautiful to be your lover. Someone who will tremble for your touch, offer you a marguerite by its long stem with his eyes lowered. Someone whose fingers are a poem.” - Janet Fitch

27. “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

28. “The way you walk is slash and burn.Like understatement's now a crime.” - Justin Quinn

29. “ink marks the page/where you execute your will like a doe announcing an/ox-stern mate with a single, bleary blink.” - Melissa Lee-Houghton

30. “I am 15 and you are 51, I know you are the best, to be loved by, everyone.” - Santosh Kalwar

31. “My care is like my shadow in the sun, Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.” - Elizabeth I

32. “Since ever the world was spinningAnd till the world shall endYou've your man in the beginningOr you have him in the end,But to have him from start to finishAnd neither nor borrow nor lendIs what all of the girls are wantingAnd none of the gods can send” - L.M. Montgomery

33. “If I wrote the word flower,would it still grow like a flower?If I wrote a poem concerning a river,would the water still flow in the eyes of the reader?” - Zakariya Amataya

34. “The Cloudy VasePast time, I threw the flowers out,washed out the cloudy vase.How easily the old clearnessleapt, like a practiced tiger, back inside it.” - Jane Hirshfield

35. “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

36. “Kamu menulis: "Kita sudah mengatakan A, maka kita harus menyebutkan seluruh huruf." Namun masalah itu sekarang sudah sedemikian luar biasa hingga aku menjadi ragu. Maka, kukutipkan puisi singkat dari Jan Erik Vold mengenai hal itu:"Siapa yang mengatakan ATelah mengatakan A"Kamu mengerti yang kumaksud, kan? Kalau kamu telah mengatakan A, maka kamu telah mengatakan A dan harus menjalani segala resiko yang mengikutinya. Tapi, itu tak berarti bahwa kamu juga harus mengatakan B.” - Jostein Gaarder

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

38. “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

39. “«¡No renuncies jamás a tus sueños, los cuerdos nada saben del sueño admirable de un loco!»” - Charles Baudelaire

40. “Do I, then, belong to the heavens?Why, if not so, should the heavensFix me thus with their ceaseless blue stare,Luring me on, and my mind, higherEver higher, up into the sky,Drawing me ceaselessly upTo heights far, far above the human?Why, when balance has been strictly studiedAnd flight calculated with the best of reasonTill no aberrant element should, by rights, remain-Why, still, should the lust for ascensionSeem, in itself, so close to madness?Nothing is that can satify me;Earthly novelty is too soon dulled;I am drawn higher and higher, more unstable,Closer and closer to the sun's effulgence.Why do these rays of reason destroy me?Villages below and meandering streamsGrow tolerable as our distance grows.Why do they plead, approve, lure meWith promise that I may love the humanIf only it is seen, thus, from afar-Although the goal could never have been love, Nor, had it been, could I ever haveBelonged to the heavens?I have not envied the bird its freedomNor have I longed for the ease of Nature,Driven by naught save this strange yearningFor the higher, and the closer, to plunge myselfInto the deep sky's blue, so contraryTo all organic joys, so farFrom pleasures of superiority But higher, and higher,Dazzled, perhaps, by the dizzy incandescenceOf waxen wings.Or do I then Belong, after all, to the earth?Why, if not so, should the earthShow such swiftness to encompass my fall?Granting no space to think or feel,Why did the soft, indolent earth thusGreet me with the shock of steel plate?Did the soft earth thus turn to steelOnly to show me my own softness?That Nature might bring home to meThat to fall, not to fly, is in the order of things,More natural by far than that improbable passion?Is the blue of the sky then a dream?Was it devised by the earth, to which I belonged,On account of the fleeting, white-hot intoxicationAchieved for a moment by waxen wings?And did the heavens abet the plan to punish me?To punish me for not believing in myself Or for believing too much;Too earger to know where lay my allegianceOr vainly assuming that already I knew all;For wanting to fly offTo the unknownOr the known:Both of them a single, blue speck of an idea?” - Yukio Mishima

41. “Cheap little rhymesA cheap little tuneAre sometimes as dangerousAs a sliver of the moon.” - Langston Hughes

42. “Ben.. Sen...ben seni seviyorum sen gezmeyi, senin hep gittiğin yere ben hiç gidemiyorum. Öylece durmayı seviyorum ben.. Durup ardından bakmayı.. Sen yürümeyi seviyorsun ama arkana bakmadan.. yaprak seviyorum ben yaprak.. Kuru, yaş ayırmadan.. Sen ezmeyi seviyorsun, neye bastığına bakmadan..” - Ceyhun Yılmaz

43. “One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes--I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.” - Frank O'Hara

44. “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

45. “What is this thing you call substance abuse? All I wanna do is forget and get loose.Drinking and smoking over and overWhat's so great about a life that's sober?There's nothing cool about being youngWhen the monsters of night have stolen the sun.I'm tired of searching for words in the sky.All I wanna do is drink and die. Nothing is real. It's all a big lie. All I wanna do is drink and die. There's nothing cool about being youngWhen the monsters of night have stolen the sun.” - Benjamin Alire Saenz

46. “I am, a shadowthat grows longer as the sunmoves, drawn outon a thread of wonder.If I bear burdensthey begin to be rememberedas gifts, goods, a basketof bread that hurtsmy shoulders but closes mein fragrance. I caneat as I go. ("Stepping Westward")” - Denise Levertov

47. “I'm a peasantI'm the muzhikA pest you're destined to play the musicAnd yes it's pleasant to say it's beauty I'mIndebted to rest respecting it truly” - Criss Jami

48. “There was a young man who said though, it seems that I know that I know, but what I would like to see is the I that knows me when I know that I know that I know.” - Alan Wilson Watts

49. “The children walk away from me, flick flickety off at a tangent between thin blotched beech trunks, then turn like yo-yos at the end of their strings and come back to me" from the poem "In a BishopsWood Clearing” - jay woodman

50. “grappling with some small understanding of this place, this time, we're in" my poem "In a BishopsWood Clearing” - jay woodman

51. “I wanted to write the most beautiful poem but that is impossible; the world has written its own.” - Dejan Stojnaovic

52. “I could simply kill you now, get it over with, who would know the difference? I could easily kick you in, stove you under, for all those times, mean on gin, you rammed words into my belly. (p. 52)” - Barbara Blatner

53. “Not all that have fallen are vanquished.” - J. R. R. Tolkien

54. “I just sit where I'm put, composedof stone and wishful thinking:that the deity who kills for pleasurewill also heal,that in the midst of your nightmare,the final one, a kind lionwill come with bandages in her mouthand the soft body of a woman,and lick you clean of fever, and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neckand caress you into darkness and paradise.” - Louise Penny

55. “Hanginiz bilir, benim kadar/ Karpuzdan fener yapmasını" - Orhan Veli.” - Sunay Akın

56. “Solo For Ear-Trumpet The carriage brushes through the brightLeaves (violent jets from life to light);Strong polished speed is plunging, heavesBetween the showers of bright hot leavesThe window-glasses glaze our facesAnd jar them to the very basis — But they could never put a polishUpon my manners or abolishMy most distinct disinclinationFor calling on a rich relation!In her house — (bulwark built betweenThe life man lives and visions seen) — The sunlight hiccups white as chalk,Grown drunk with emptiness of talk,And silence hisses like a snake — Invertebrate and rattling ache….Then suddenly EternityDrowns all the houses like a seaAnd down the street the Trump of DoomBlares madly — shakes the drawing-roomWhere raw-edged shadows sting forlornAs dank dark nettles. Down the hornOf her ear-trumpet I conveyThe news that 'It is Judgment Day!''Speak louder: I don't catch, my dear.'I roared: 'It is the Trump we hear!''The What?' 'THE TRUMP!' 'I shall complain!…. the boy-scouts practising again.” - Edith Sitwell

57. “رائعة صلاح عبد الصبور ، أحلام الفارس القديم” - صلاح عبد الصبور

58. “Most things may never happen: this one will.” - Philip Larkin

59. “Welcome to thee,O sword of eternity!Through BuddhaAnd through Daruma alikeThou hast cleft thy way.” - Kakuzo Okakura

60. “Shine and shimmer my Harvest Moon,illuminate the shadows in the sky.” - A.F. Stewart

61. “[...] 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

62. “About your easy heads my prayersI said with syllables of clay.What gift, I asked, shall I bring nowBefore I weep and walk away?Take, they replied, the oak and laurel.Take our fortune of tears and liveLike a spendthrift lover. All we askIs the one gift you cannot give.” - Tana French