81 Quotes by Stephen Spender

The greatest of all human delusions is that there is a tangible goal, and not just direction towards an ideal aim. The idea that a goal can be attained perpetually frustrates human beings, who are disappointed at never getting there, never being able to stop.

Although Poets are vain and ambitious, their vanity and ambition are of the purest kind attainable in this world. They are ambitious to be accepted for what they altimately are as revealed in their poetry.

Him I delight in accepts joy as joy;He is richened by sorrow as a river by its bends

...Tolstoy's characters seem to come forward to meet you, very conscious of the impression they are making on one another and on the reader.

When you read and understand a poem, comprehending its rich and formal meanings, then you master chaos a little.

Great poetry is always written by somebody straining to go beyond what he can do.

When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes, I was your son, high on your horse, My mind a top whipped by the lashes Of your rhetoric, windy of course.

There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife — a tyrannical midwife.

Moments that can never happen again and never lost their wonder.