What we now call "finance" is, I hold, an intellectual perversion... by Robert Graves

What we now call "finance" is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.

Robert Graves

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There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting. by Robert Graves

There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.

rewriting good-writing writing

Mythology is the study of whatever religious or heroic legends are so foreign to a student's experience that he cannot believe them to be true. . . . Myth has two main functions. The first is to answer the sort of awkward questions that children ask, such as: 'Who made the world? How will it end? Who was the first man? Where do souls go after death?'. . . . The second function of myth is to justify an existing social system and account for traditional rites and customs.

religious believe children

The difference between prose logic and poetic thought is simple. The logician uses words as a builder uses bricks, for the unemotional deadness of his academic prose; and is always coining newer, deader words with a natural preference for Greek formations. The poet avoids the entire vocabulary of logic unless for satiric purposes, and treats words as living creatures with a preference for those with long emotional histories dating from mediaeval times. Poetry at its purest is, indeed, a defiance of logic.

differences emotional simple

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money,... by Robert Graves

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

money poetry writing

Strawberries that in gardens grow by Robert Graves

Strawberries that in gardens grow

wise summer spring

For I now realize that what overcame me that evening was a sudden awareness of the power of intuition, the supra-logic that cuts out all routine processes of thought and leaps straight from problem to answer.

routine intuition cutting

We once discussed which were the cleanest troops in the trenches, taken by nationalities. We agreed on a descending-order like this: English and German Protestants; Northern Irish, Welsh and Canadians; Irish and German Catholics; Scots; Mohammedan Indians; Algerians; Portugese; Belgians; French. We put the Belgians and French there for spite; they could not have been dirtier than the Algerians and the Portugese.

taken war order

Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he a... by Robert Graves

Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.

poet break english-grammar

I do not love the Sabbath, The soapsuds and the starch, The troops of solemn people Who to Salvation march. I take my book, I take my stick On the Sabbath day, In woody nooks and valleys I hide myself away. To ponder there in quiet God's Universal Plan, Resolved that church and Sabbath Were never made for man.

men book people

This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet's destiny is to love.

philosophical destiny poet

Kill if you must, but never hate: Man is but grass and hate is blight, The sun will scorch you soon or late, Die wholesome then, since you must fight

hate fighting men

I was last in Rome in AD 540 when it was full of Goths and their heavy horses. It has changed a great deal since then.

rome horse lasts

One smile relieves a heart that grieves. by Robert Graves

One smile relieves a heart that grieves.

She told me that all the girls in Annezin prayed every night for the war to end and for the English to go away as soon as their money was spent. She said that the clause about the money was always repeated in case God should miss it.

So when I'm killed, don't wait for me, Walking the dim corridor; In Heaven or Hell, don't wait for me, Or you must wait for evermore. You'll find me buried, living-dead In these verses that you've read.

hell waiting heaven

New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.

new-beginnings cutting spring

If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve them.

good-woman women girl

Before an attack, the platoon pools all its available cash and the survivors divide it up afterwards. Those who are killed can't complain, the wounded would have given far more than that to escape as they have, and the unwounded regard the money as a consolation prize for still being here.

survivor complaining war

When a dream is born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You'll hurt the delicate thing you prize so much.

pain hurt dream

Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot ach... by Robert Graves

Fact is not truth, but a poet who wilfully defies fact cannot achieve truth.

achieve poet facts