To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment is but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of emotion--a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling, and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge.George Eliot
About This Quote
Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that a poet was someone who had a soul so quick to discern, that no shade of quality escaped him, and so quick to feel, that discernment was but a hand playing with finely-ordered variety on the chords of emotion. He believes that a poet must have an understanding of the world and their place within it. Poets are those who understand the past, present, and future. Poets are those who understand emotions and how to bring them out. Poets are those who understand the complexity of life as well as the simplicity of it all.
Source: Middlemarch
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