Robert Graves Quotes

When the immense drugged universe explodes
In a cascade of unendurable colour
And leaves us gasping naked,
This is no more than the ectasy of chaos:
Hold fast, with both hands, to that royal love
Which alone, as we know certainly, restores
Fragmentation into true being.

Ecstasy of Chaos

There’s no money in poetry, but there’s no poetry in money, either

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.

Religious fanaticism is the most dangerous form of insanity.

I was thinking, "So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I'll be able to make people read my books now.

Because the world is in a sick condition and we are all somehow infected, against our will, even if we think we are whole in mind and soul and body.

Most men - it is my experience - are neither virtuous nor scoundrels, good-hearted nor bad-hearted. They are a little of one thing and a little of the other and nothing for any length of time: ignoble mediocrities.

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 have done many impious things-no great ruler can do otherwise. I have put the good of the Empire before all human considerations. To keep the Empire free from factions I have had to commit many crimes.

To resist the social pressure now put even on one's leisure time, requires a tougher upbringing and a more obstinate willfulness about going one's own way, than ever before.