Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do. Stephen Spender More Quotes by Stephen Spender More Quotes From Stephen Spender One type of concentration is immediate and complete, as it was with Mozart. The other is plodding and only completed in stages, as with Beethoven. Thus genius works in different ways to achieve its ends. Stephen Spender genius different way Although Poets are vain and ambitious, their vanity and ambition are of the purest kind attainable in this world. They are ambitious to be accepted for what they altimately are as revealed in their poetry. Stephen Spender ambitious vanity ambition History is the ship carrying living memories to the future. Stephen Spender ships memories history When I saw photographs of children murdered by the Fascist, I felt furious pity. When the supporters of Franco talked of Red atrocities, I merely felt indignant that people should tell such lies. In the first case I saw corpses, in the second only words. . . I gradually acquired a certain horror of the way in which my own mind worked. It was clear to me that unless I cared about every murdered child impartially, I did not really care about children being murdered at all. Stephen Spender lying children people All that you can imagine you already know. Stephen Spender imagine imagination knows But reading is not idleness?it is the passive, receptive side of civilization without which the active and creative world would be meaningless. It is the immortal spirit of the dead realised within the bodies of the living. It is sacramental. Stephen Spender creative reading civilization A poet has to adapt himself, more or less consciously,to the demands of his vocation, and hence the peculiarities of poets and the condition of inspiration which many people have said is near to madness... The problem of creative writing is essentially one of concentration... a focusing of the attention in a special way. Stephen Spender inspiration writing people The greatest of all human delusions is that there is a tangible goal, and not just direction towards an ideal aim. The idea that a goal can be attained perpetually frustrates human beings, who are disappointed at never getting there, never being able to stop. Stephen Spender able goal ideas I think continually of those who were truly great. Stephen Spender corridors thinking There is a certain justice in criticism. Stephen Spender certain criticism justice I think of those who were truly great. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's center. Stephen Spender courage heart life So i learned both to accept myself and to aim beyond myself Stephen Spender aim accepting In railway halls, on pavements near the traffic, They beg, their eyes made big by empty staring And only measuring Time , like the blank clock. No, I shall weave no tracery of pen-ornament To make them birds upon my singing tree: Time merely drives these lives which do not live As tides push rotten stuff along the shore. Stephen Spender eye tree bird My single pair of eyes Contain the universe they see; Their mirrored multiplicity Is packed into a hollow body Where I reflect the many, in my one. Stephen Spender pairs body eye For I had expected always Stephen Spender finals dust hope No one Shall hunger: Man shall spend equally. Our goal which we compel: Man shall be man. Stephen Spender hunger goal men Never allow gradually the traffic to smother with noise and fog the flowering of the spirit. Stephen Spender fog spirit noise The greatest poets are those with memories so great that they extend beyond their strongest experiences to their minutest observations of people and things far outside their own self-centeredness. Stephen Spender creativity self memories Paul Valery speaks of the 'une ligne donnee' of a poem. One line is given to the poet by God or by nature, the rest he has to discover for himself. Stephen Spender one-line lines speak All one can do is to achieve nakedness, to be what one is with all one's faculties and perceptions, strengthened by all the skill which one can acquire. And then to stand before the judgement of time. Stephen Spender achievement judgement skills
