Saint-John Perse Quotes & Sayings

Followers of trails and of seasons, breakers of camp in the little dawn wind, seekers of watercourses over the wrinkled rind of the world, o seekers, o finders of reasons to be up and be gone ... — Saint-John Perse

The only menace is inertia. — Saint-John Perse

Astronomers have been bewildered by the theory of an expanding universe, but there is no less expansion in the moral infinite of the universe of man. As far as the frontiers of science are pushed back, over the extended arc of these frontiers one will hear the poet's hounds on the chase. — Saint-John Perse

A world to be born under your footsteps ... — Saint-John Perse

In truth, every creation of the mind is first of all 'poetic' in the proper sense of the word; and inasmuch as there exists an equivalence between the modes of sensibility and intellect, it is the same function that is exercised initially in the enterprises of the poet and the scientist. — Saint-John Perse

And it is enough for the poet to be the guilty conscience of his time. — Saint-John Perse

Poetry allies itself with beauty - a supreme union - but never uses it as its ultimate goal or sole nourishment. — Saint-John Perse

The poet existed among the cave men; he will exist among men of the atomic age, for he is an inherent part of man. Even religions have been born from the need for poetry, which is a spiritual need, and it is through the grace of poetry that the divine spark lives forever in the human flint. — Saint-John Perse

It is enough for a poet to be the guilty conscience of his age. — Saint-John Perse

The poet is the one who breaks through our habits. — Saint-John Perse