Portal:Poetry/Quotes archive/Week 51 2006

"He [the poet] must divest himself of the prejudices of his age or country; he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state; he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will always be the same: he must therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name, contemn the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of nature, and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations; as being superior to time and place."

&mdash; spoken by Imlac in Samuel Johnson's Rasselas, Chapter X

"Enough! Thou hast convinced me, that no human being can ever be a poet."

&mdash; spoken by the Prince, Rasselas, Chapter XI