Robert Graves Quotes

English poet and novelist (1895-1985)

Robert Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a prolific English poet, scholar and novelist. He is most famous for his autobiographical work Goodbye to All That, and works on classical themes and mythology, such as I, Claudius, The Greek Myths and The White Goddess. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Birth Name: Robert von Ranke Graves

Native Name: Robert Ranke Graves

Alternative Names: Robert von Ranke-Graves • Robert Von Ranke-Graves

From Wikidata (CC0)

But give thanks, at least, that you still have Frost's poems; and when you feel the need of solitude, retreat to the companionship of moon, water, hills and trees. Retreat, he reminds us, should not be confused with escape. And take these poems along for good luck!

But godhead is, after all, a matter of fact, not a matter of opinion: if a man is generally worshipped as a god then he is a god. And if a god ceases to be worshipped he is nothing.

About this business of being a gentleman: I paid so heavily for the fourteen years of my gentleman’s education that I feel entitled, now and then, to get some sort of return.

There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting.

Those that can’t beat the ass, beat the saddle.

Augustus ruled the world, but Livia ruled Augustus.

Poets can't march in protest or do that sort of thing. I feel that's against the rules, and pointless. If mankind wants a great big final bang, that's what it'll get. One should never protest against anything unless it's going to have an effect. None of those marches do. One should either be silent or go straight to the top.

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.

I am supposed to be an utter fool and the more I read the more of a fool they think me.

Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girls
Married impossible men?
Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out,
And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.

Repeat 'impossible men': not merely rustic,
Foul-tempered or depraved
(Dramatic foils chosen to show the world
How well women behave, and always have behaved).

Impossible men: idle, illiterate,
Self-pitying, dirty, sly,
For whose appearance even in City parks
Excuses must be made to casual passers-by.

Has God's supply of tolerable husbands
Fallen, in fact, so low?
Or do I always over-value woman
At the expense of man?
Do I?
It might be so.

This seems to me a philosophical question, and therefore irrelevant, question. A poet's destiny is to love.

The Cabbage White

The butterfly, a cabbage-white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight,
Yet has- who knows so well as I?-
A just sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and here by guess
And God and hope and hopelessness.
Even the acrobatic swift
Has not his flying-crooked gift.

This is a story of what I was, not what I am.

What's remarkable about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

I love, therefore I am.