Florence Earle Coates Quotes

A democrat by conviction rather than by temperament, urging democracy as 'the only method consistent with human instinct toward expansion,' he was yet an educator, and believed in equality upon a high, not upon a low plane. Like Ruskin, he demanded of men their best, and with less than their best refused to be satisfied.

there is a higher truth and a lower truth, and it is the higher truth that is the proper subject of poetry.

Maeterlinck says that compared with ordinary truths mystic truths have strange privileges—they can neither age nor die. Beauty is eternal and ugliness, thank God, is ephemeral. Can there be any question as to which should attract the poet?

My "Poems" were written without a purpose, other than the expression of faiths and ideals strongly realized and emotions keenly felt. They were written for the joy of writing, and for the satisfaction of an irresistible impulse. It is my belief that it is not the business of art either to teach or to preach.

poetry in some form is necessary to all—save, perhaps, to those who are content to live upon bread alone.

Of all the arts poetry is the most intimate and personal.

Poetry belongs to the real things—to the realm of the ideal which is "the only real."

She was a great woman with the heart of a little child. Her works praise her; the millions of God's creatures whom she has saved from suffering sing her praise. Where she has gone the recognition of this world counts for little. She has gone where the merciful are blessed, where the pure in heart see God.

Sculpture and painting are moments of life. Poetry is life itself.

The future of poetry should be, must be, in the hearts of children, lifting them above mean desires and helping them to believe, with Socrates, that they who have the fewest wants are nearest to the gods.

There is no true poetry that is not dedicated to the soul and to joy.

The question of perpetual copyright is, in my judgement, entitled to the full and favorable consideration of the Congress of an enlightened republic. There would seem to be every reason for the equitable protection, without limit as to time, of the unquestioned property rights of its citizens.

They live indeed—the dead by whose example we are upward led.

I love, and the world is mine!

In education poetry is invaluable; the study of it cultivates the memory, the imagination, and the heart.