Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out... Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.

Quote by A E Housman

Topics: Poetry Quotes

Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over...

Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to keep watch over...

I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.

I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.

Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull,...

Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull,...

Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the...

Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the...

Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell....

Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell....

The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.

The average man, if he meddles with criticism at all, is a conservative critic.

The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.

The house of delusions is cheap to build but drafty to live in.

In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a...

In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a...

The laws of God, the laws of man he may keep that will and can;...

The laws of God, the laws of man he may keep that will and can;...

Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land...

Here dead lie we because we did not choose to live and shame the land...

If a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the...

If a line of poetry strays into my memory, my skin bristles so that the...

Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.

Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think.

Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to...

Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to...

That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways...

That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, the happy highways...

And silence sounds no worse than cheers / After death has stopped the ears.

And silence sounds no worse than cheers / After death has stopped the ears.

The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail....

The troubles of our proud and angry dust are from eternity, and shall not fail....