My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own. Thomas Hardy
A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. W H Auden
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood. Jean Cocteau
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. T S Eliot
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Percy Bysshe Shelley
It is a part of the poet’s work to show each man what he sees but does not know he sees. Edith Sitwell
In Russia all tyrants believe poets to be their worst enemies. Yevgeny Yevtushenko
A poet must be a psychologist, but a secret one: he should know and feel the roots of phenomena but present only the phenomena themselves – in full bloom or as they fade away. Ivan Turgenev
You will be a poet because you will always be humiliated. W H Auden
Poets, we know, are terribly sensitive people, and in my observation one of the things they are most sensitive about is money. Robert Penn Warren
For a good poet’s made as well as born. Ben Jonson
Inspiration is a farce that poets have invented to give themselves importance. Jean Anouilh