Quote

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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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
Dies
Grass
Fighting
Killing
Hate
Sun
Must
Soon
Never
Kill
Men
Late
Scorch
Fight
Blight
Since
Wholesome

More quotes by Robert Graves

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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.
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Every English poet should master the rules of grammar before he attempts to bend or break them.
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Marriage, like money, is still with us and, like money, progressively devalued.
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When I'm killed, don't think of me Buried there in Cambrin Wood, Nor as in Zion think of me With the Intolerable Good. And there's one thing that I know well, I'm damned if I'll be damned to Hell!
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One smile relieves a heart that grieves.
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In love as in sport, the amateur status must be strictly maintained.
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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.
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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.
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Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.
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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.
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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.
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New beginnings and new shoots Spring again from hidden roots Pull or stab or cut or burn, Love must ever yet return.
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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.
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What we now call finance is, I hold, an intellectual perversion of what began as warm human love.
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.
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Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists though their field-work among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science.
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No poem is worth anything unless it starts from a poetic trance, out of which you can be wakened by interruption as from a dream. In fact, it is the same thing.
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To be a poet is a condition rather than a profession.
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Well, we've been lucky devils both And there is no need for a pledge or oath To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff Close bound enough.
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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?
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