Here are the 127 best handpicked inspirational poet quotes categorized:
- Short inspirational poetic quotes
- Deep poetic quotes
So if you are looking for the best collection of inspirational poet quotes, then you’re in the right place.
Keep reading!
Our Handpicked Inspirational Poet Quotes
Dive into a collection of the most inspiring poet quotes, thoughtfully curated for your motivational journey.
Whether you’re seeking words that ignite your creative spirit, or reflect on the power of imagination and resilience, our anthology offers a diverse range of uplifting examples.
With our meticulously curated selection, the finest poet quotes are all conveniently located in one place.
So, take a moment to explore and appreciate the wisdom and inspiration these words have sparked in poets throughout history!
Let’s get right into it!
My Favorite Inspirational Poet Quote
The rose is fairest when ’tis budding new, And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
–Walter Scott
Short Inspirational Poetic Quotes
Know how sublime a thing it is to suffer and be strong.
–Longfellow
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
–Shakespeare
How slow the time To the warm soul, that, in the very instant It forms, would execute a great design!
–Thomson
From this moment the very firstlings of my heart shall be
The firstlings of my hand. And even now, To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done.
–Shakespeare
Potential is the good of life, action the secret key that opes the garnered wealth of Him Who gives with this decree: That man shall gather from the realm of beauty and of love, bright gems for his own coronal within the bliss above.
–Williams
Rest not! Life is sweeping by; Go and dare before you die.
Something mighty and sublime leave behind to conquer time ;
Glorious ‘ tis to live for aye, when these forms have passed away.
–Goethe
Be earnest! Do what thou dost as if the stake were heaven, And that thy last deed ere the judgment day.
–Kingsley
Lift up thine eyes to seek the invisible: Stir up thy heart to choose the still unseen.
–Christina Rossetti
Sad are the sorrows that oftentimes come, heavy and dull, and blighting and chill, shutting the light from our heart and our home,
marring our hopes and defying our will. But let us not sink beneath the woe for be sure though we may not oft see it below, ‘Tis well, perchance, weare tried and bowed; There’s a silver lining to every cloud.
–Eliza Cook
Affliction is the good man’s shining scene, Prosperity obscures his brightest ray. As night to stars, woe luster gives to man.
–Young
Adversity’s cold frost will soon be o’er: It heralds brighter days; the joyous Spring Is cradled on the Winter’s icy breast, And yet comes flushed in beauty.
–Mrs. Hemans
Strength is born In the deep silence of long- suffering hearts,
Not amidst joy.
–Anonymous
The fountain of joy is fed by tears, And love is lit by the breath of sighs; The deepest griefs and the wildest fears have holiest ministries.
–J. G. Holland
O sweet are the tones of affection sincere when they come from the depth of the heart! And sweet are the words that banish each care,
And bid sorrow forever depart!
–E. L. Bulwer
The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
–Shakespeare
Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.
–Shakespeare
Large scope of pleasure drowns us like a flood; To rest in little is our greatest good.
–Beaumont
Much will always wanting be to him who much desires. Thrice happy he to whom the wise indulgency of Heaven, With sparing hand, but just enough has given.
–Cowley
Obscured life sets down a type of bliss, A mind content both crown and kingdom is.
–Robert Greene
Beware what earth calls happiness; beware All joys, but joys that never can expire; Who builds on less than an immortal base, Fond as he seems, condemns his joy to death.
–Young
There comes Forever something between us and what
we deem our happiness.
–Byron
The highest hills are miles below the sky, And so far is the lightest heart below True happiness.
–Bailey
True happiness (if understood) Consists alone in doing good.
–Somerville
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings.
–Shakespeare
What are my books? -My friends, my loves, my church, my tavern, and my only wealth.
–Richard Le Gallienne
Hope, like the glimm’ring taper’s light, adorns and cheers the way ;
And still, as darker grows the night, emits a brighter ray.
–Goldsmith
Let’s take the instant by the forward top; For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees the inaudible and noiseless foot of time steals ere we can effect them.
–Shakespeare
Be wise; Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise.
–Massinger
Live to some purpose; make thy life A gift of use to thee!
A joy, a good, a golden hope, A heavenly argosy!
–Procter
Your life is what you make it; to your hands that sacred trust is given
And you too oft with treason break the bands that would unite you blissfully to heaven.
–Anonymous
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet with charm of earliest birds.
–Milton
The day in hand, like a bird struggling to get loose, is going; Scarce now possessed, so suddenly ‘ tis going; And each swift moment fled, is death advanced By strides as swift. Eternity is all.
–Young
Love, hope, fear, faith , – these make humanity;
These are its sign, and note, and character.
–Robert Browning
Live like fire-hearted suns, to spend their strength In furthest striving action.
–George Eliot
The deepest hunger of a faithful heart Is faithfulness.
–George Eliot
Nothing is a misery, unless our weakness apprehend it so:
We cannot be more faithful to ourselves, in anything that’s manly, than to make ill-fortune as contemptible to us As it makes us to others.
–Beaumont & Fletcher
But what are past or future joys? The present is our own;
And he is wise who best employs the passing hour alone.
–Heber
All who joy would win must share it – Happiness was born a twin.
–Byron
I with you, and you with me, Miles are short with company.
–George Eliot
To be good is to be happy – Angels are happier than mankind, because they’re better. Guilt is the source of sorrow ! ‘ tis the fiend,
Th’ avenging fiend , that follows us behind, With whips and stings.
–Nicholas Rowe
Strong souls live like fire-hearted suns, to spend their strength In furthest striving action.
–George Eliot
I have seen a swan with bootless labor swim against the tide ,
And spend her strength with over-matching waves.
–Shakespeare
Strength of mind is exercise, not rest.
–Pope
Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thy own life’s key: be check’d for silence, But never tax’d for speech.
–Shakespeare
What then remains, but well our power to use,
And keep good-humor still, whate’er we lose?
And trust me, dear, good-humor can prevail,
When airs, and flights , and screams, and scolding fail.
–Pope
Patience is powerful.
–Longfellow
Apt words have power to ‘suage The tumors of a troubled mind ;
And are as balm to fester’d wounds
–Milton
Only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in their dust.
–James Shirley
Sweet April! many a thought Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed:
Nor shall they fail till, to its autumn brought, Life’s golden fruit is shed.
–Longfellow
Come, loveliest season of the year,
And every quickened pulse shall beat,
Your footsteps in the grass to hear,
And feel your kisses soft and sweet.
–Phoebe Cary
But ‘ tis a nobler privilege to think; And oft, from books apart, the thirsting mind may make the nectar which it cannot find. ‘Tis well to borrow from the good and great; Tis wise to learn; ‘ tis god-like to create!
–J. G. Saxe
Night is the time for rest; – How sweet, when labors close, to gather round an aching breast the curtain of repose, stretch the tir’d limbs and lay the head down to our own delightful bed.
–James Montgomery
And light is mingled with the gloom, And joy with grief;
Divinest compensations come, Through thorns of judgment mercies bloom In sweet relief.
–Whittier
All that’s bright must fade, The brightest still the fleetest ;
All that’s sweet was made But to be lost when sweetest.
–Moore
As down in the sunless retreats of the ocean
Sweet flowers are springing no mortal can see,
So deep in my soul the still prayer of devotion
Unheard by the world, rises silent to Thee.
–Moore
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
–William Cullen Bryant
Faith is the subtle chain That binds us to the Infinite: the voice
Of a deep life within.
–Elizabeth Oakes Smith
Faith is a higher faculty than reason.
–Bailey
Good, the more communicated, the more abundant grows.
–Milton
Some are born great, some achieve greatness,
And some have greatness thrust upon them.
–Shakespeare
It is the beggars who possess the earth.
–Arthur Symons
Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward To what they were before.
–Shakespeare
Yet I argue not Against Heaven’s hand or will , nor bate a jot Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer right onward.
–Milton
Yet where an equal poise of hope and fear does arbitrate the event, my nature is that I incline to hope rather than fear.
–Milton
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies deeply buried from human eyes.
–Whittier
None without hope e’er loved the brightest fair,
But love can hope, where reason would despair.
–Lord Lyttelton
Hope, like the gleaming taper’s light, Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray.
–Goldsmith
There is no pleasure like the pain Of being loved, and loving.
–Praed
True love is at home on a carpet, And mightily likes his ease ,
And true love has an eye for a dinner, And starves beneath shady trees.
–Willis
You know that love will creep in service where it cannot go.
–Shakespeare
I must not quarrel with the will Of highest dispensation, which herein, haply had ends above my reach to know.
–Milton
Deep Poetic Quotes
There is a Power whose care teaches thy way.
–William Cullen Bryant
God’s hours are never late.
–Helen Hunt
The stars are images of love.
–Bailey
Life lives only in success.
–Bayard Taylor
One thing is forever good; That one thing is Success.
–Emerson
What though success will not attend on all,
Who bravely dares must sometimes risk a fall.
–Smollett
To-morrow comes, and we are where?
Then let us live to-day.
–Schiller
In human hearts what bolder thought can rise,
Than man’s presumption on to-morrow’s dawn?
Where is to-morrow?
–Young
Experience, like a pale musician, holds a dulcimer of patience in his hand.
–Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Experience is a dumb, dead thing; The victory’s in believing.
–J. R. Lowell
The eyes of Love are those alone which see.
–George Barlow
Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.
–Robert Browning
…faithfulness can feed on suffering,
And knows no disappointment.
–George Eliot
The deepest hunger of a faithful heart Is faithfulness.
–George Eliot
Within yourselves deliverance must be sought;
Each man his prison makes.
–Sir Edwin Arnold
Yet they, believe me, who await no gifts from chance, have conquer’d fate.
–Matthew Arnold
Why should I fear, when I can never know If joy or grief, if life or death be best?
–E. F. M. Beneke
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars.
–A. H. Clough
Fear makes an enemy of truth itself.
–John Davidson
Fear hath a startled eye that holds a fear.
–Christina Rossetti
Better to have a loving friend Than ten admiring foes.
–George Macdonald
All great works in this world spring from the ruins of greater projects.
–Robert Browning
Could if he would? True greatness ever wills- It lives in wholeness if it live at all, And all its strength is knit with constancy.
–George Eliot
There’s a Divinity within That makes men great, where’er they will it.
–Gerald Massey
Things gained are gone, but great things done endure.
–A. C. Swinburne
Why stay we on the earth unless we grow?
–Robert Browning
Ah, sir, the soft hearts bend and rise,
The stern ones stand-and break.
–Frederick Langbridge
Break not, O woman’s heart, but still endure.
–Alfred Lord Tennyson
All actual heroes are essential men, And all men possible heroes.
–Elizabeth Barrett Browning
With honest hearts: they easily may err,
But in the main they wish well to the truth.
–Robert Browning
The old hope is hardest to be lost.
–Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Hope is the world’s best blood, which, chilled or shed, Palsies the heart of Time.
–Sir F. H. Doyle
Men who might do greatly in a universe that breaks
And burns, must ever know before they do.
–Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Knowledge is power? Above All else, knowledge is love.
–John Davidson
…if knowledge bring the sword,
That knowledge takes the sword away.
–Alfred Lord Tennyson
Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest
ignorant?
–Walt Whitman
For work is a good investment, and almost always pays.
–Will Carleton
By work and that alone our souls are blest,
And whoso gains it , he is blest indeed.
–Sir Lewis Morris
The aids to noble life are all within.
–Matthew Arnold
This life is ours. Be it ours to make this life, as best we can
Devoid of suffering, pain, heart- ache, A present heaven for man.
–George Barlow
How good is man’s life , the mere living! how fit to employ All the heart and the soul and the senses for ever in joy!
–Robert Browning
…life, without absolute use Of the actual sweet therein, is death, not life,
–Robert Browning
Leave larger issues to your God, But trebly guard the instant day.
–Norman Gale
Hope the best, but hold the Present, fatal daughter of the Past,
Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hour will last.
–Alfred Lord Tennyson
Small service is true service-and we know God is not critical.
–Robert Buchanan
We that eats Must serve; and serve as other servants do.
–A. H. Clough
The strongest tower has not the highest wall,
Think well of this, when you sit safe at home.
–William Morris
The attempt Is all the wedge that splits its knotty way
Betwixt the impossible and possible.
–Alice Cary
As all our moral bitters are designed to brace the mind, And renovate its healthy tone, the wise their sorest trials hail as blessings in disguise.
–Horace Smith
A sable night returns a shining morrow, And days of joy ensue sad nights of sorrow; The way to bliss lies not on beds of down, And he that had no cross deserves no crown.
–Francis Quarles
Afflictions clarify the soul.
–Francis Quarles
Each cloud that dims thy upward way shall more endear the glorious day that gilds the land of love!
–Bowring
Let us be patient! these severe afflictions not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions assume this dark disguise.
We see but dimly through the mists and vapors; Amid these earthly damps What seem to us but sad funereal tapers, may be heaven’s distant lamps.
–Longfellow
The heart is like an instrument whose strings steal magic music from life’s mystic frets; The golden threads are spun through suffering’s fire, Wherewith the marriage- robes for heaven are woven; And all the rarest hues of human life take radiance, and are rainbowed out in tears.
–Massey
Our dearest hopes in pangs are born,
The kingliest kings are crowned with thorn.
–Massey