Quote

Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale.

Robert Graves

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Robert Graves
Age: 90 †
Born: 1895
Born: July 24
Died: 1985
Died: December 7
Literary Critic
Military Personnel
Mythographer
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Theatre Critic
Translator
Robert von Ranke-Graves
Robert Von Ranke-Graves
Robert Ranke Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves
Though
Goods
Woman
Bill
Another
Sell
Women
Sells
Men
Bills
Listed
Intention
Sale
Meant
Delivering
Marriage
Originally

More quotes by Robert Graves

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There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.
Robert Graves
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Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher Swept off his tall hat to the Squire's own daughter, So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly Singing about her head, as she rode by.
Robert Graves
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There's a cool web of language winds us in, Retreat from too much joy or too much fear: We grow sea-green at last and coldly die In brininess and volubility.
Robert Graves
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If I thought that any poem of mine could have been written by anyone else, either a contemporary or a forerunner, I should suppress it with a blush and I should do the same if I ever found I were imitating myself. Every poem should be new, unexpected, inimitable, and incapable of being parodied.
Robert Graves
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Love is universal migraine, A bright stain on the vision Blotting out reason. Symptoms of true love Are leanness, jealousy, Laggard dawns Are omens and nightmares - Listening for a knock, Waiting for a sign: For a touch of her fingers In a darkened room, For a searching look. Take courage, lover! Could you endure such pain At any hand but hers?
Robert Graves
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To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
Robert Graves
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Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
Robert Graves
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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
Robert Graves
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The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.
Robert Graves
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Love is a universal migraine. A bright stain on the vision, Blotting out reason.
Robert Graves
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Through the window I can see Rooks above the cherry-tree, Sparrows in the violet bed, Bramble-bush and bumble-bee, And old red bracken smoulders still Among boulders on the hill, Far too bright to seem quite dead. But old Death, who can't forget, Waits his time and watches yet, Waits and watches by the door.
Robert Graves
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The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
Robert Graves
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She tells her love while half asleep, In the dark hours, With half-words whispered low: As Earth stirs in her winter sleep And puts out grass and flowers Despite the snow, Despite the falling snow.
Robert Graves
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Prose books are the show dogs I breed and sell to support my cat.
Robert Graves
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Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.
Robert Graves
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Nine-tenths of English poetic literature is the result either of vulgar careerism or of a poet trying to keep his hand in. Most poets are dead by their late twenties.
Robert Graves
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I don't really feel my poems are mine at all. I didn't create them out of nothing. I owe them to my relations with other people.
Robert Graves
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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.
Robert Graves
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As you are woman, so be lovely: As you are lovely, so be various, Merciful as constant, constant as various, So be mine, as I yours for ever.
Robert Graves
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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.
Robert Graves