Poetic Gems: A Collection of 90 Poetic Quotes

“Poetic Gems” invites you to wander through a garden of poetic quotes.

I’ve collected 90 snippets from poetry that have moved and inspired me here.

Whether you’re seeking comfort, inspiration, or a moment of reflection, these poetic gems offer a window into the vast landscapes of human emotions.

Contents show

Poetic quotes

1. “All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

2. “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

3. “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

4. “Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry.”
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Angel

5. “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
― Victor Hugo

6. “The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost

7. “We love the things we love for what they are.”
― Robert Frost

8. “You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

9. “I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart) I am never without it (anywhere

I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”

― E.E. Cummings

10. “Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”
― Plato

11. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver

12. “If you’re reading this…

Congratulations, you’re alive.

If that’s not something to smile about,

then I don’t know what is.”
― Chad Sugg, Monsters Under Your Head

13. “I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

― Sarah Williams

14. “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

15. “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”
― E.E. Cummings

16. “Resist much, obey little.”
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

17. “Unbeing dead isn’t being alive.”
― E. E. Cummings

18. “You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.”
Mary Oliver

19. “A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
― Robert Frost

20. “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”

― G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions

21. “Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire,

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.”
― Robert Frost

22. “Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper,

That we may record our emptiness.”
― Kahlil Gibran

23. “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship

24. “I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;

I lift my eyes and all is born again.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

25. “I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.

Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day

I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,

your hands the color of a savage harvest,

hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,

I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,

the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,

I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,

hunting for you, for your hot heart,

Like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.”
― Pablo Neruda

26. “What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”
― Walt Whitman

27. “If you are a dreamer come in

If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar

A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer

If you’re a pretender come sit by my fire

For we have some flax golden tales to spin

Come in!

Come in!”
― Shel Silverstein

28. “Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate

And though I oft have passed them by

A day will come at last when I

Shall take the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

29. “She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood.

She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

30. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
― T.S. Eliot

You can also check: 30 Inspirational Quotes About Strength

Short Poetic Quotes

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.” – Emily Dickinson
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by.” – Robert Frost
“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” – William Ernest Henley
“Do not go gentle into that good night.” – Dylan Thomas
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” – John Keats
“I wandered lonely as a cloud.” – William Wordsworth
“Love is an endless act of forgiveness.” – William Shakespeare
“Poetry is what gets lost in translation.” – Robert Frost
“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself.” – Walt Whitman
“The poetry of the earth is never dead.” – John Keats
“Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” – Alexander Pope
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” – John Keats
“I am nobody! Who are you?” – Emily Dickinson
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.” – William Shakespeare
“Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.” – Edgar Allan Poe
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand.” – William Blake
“Let us go then, you and I.” – T.S. Eliot
“I have spread my dreams under your feet.” – W.B. Yeats
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” – W.B. Yeats

You can also check: 110 Quotes to Embrace the Spirit of Summer

Poetic Quotes For Him

“Thy smile, a sunbeam breaking through winter’s veil Melting the frost of doubt, bringing warmth to my heart.”
“If you said you were thirsty I would give you the ocean blue. I would give you anything: the moon, the stars, the sunset too.”
“If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.”
“The sparkle in your eye, The warmth of your skin, Your breath on my neck.”
“My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit”
“For his body, I would give my soul, and for his love, I would surrender heaven.”
“Each twinkle, a tale of ancient light in your eyes. Comets trail, painting our dreams in stardust.”
“Come live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove.”
“I love your arms when the warm white flesh Touches mine in a fond embrace”
“You’ll never lose me, for I am (insert his name here) glue!”
“In every glance, my heart takes flight, Your presence fills my thoughts day and night.”
“With thee, my love, each day is a resplendent April Where love’s melody dances in the fragrant air”
“When our hands touched, a current surged, Electricity danced, my senses surged.”
“He is like a summer’s day, Radiating warmth and joy, wherever he goes.”
“In the tapestry of destiny, we were entwined, As soul mates, our hearts forever aligned.”
“He is my unwavering protector, A stalwart sentinel who holds me in a warm cocoon.”
“In his soft brown hair, secrets whispered, His warm skin, a canvas gently kissed.”
“You are truly the epitome of perfection, The embodiment of all that is good and remarkable.”
“In your gaze lies all I yearn for, all I need.”
“He shines like the North Star, celestial, illuminating my soul In his presence, my world is warm, purposeful, content”

You can also check: 10 Quotes When You Love Someone You Can’t Have

Poetic Quotes from Books

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
- “All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”
Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
- “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this.”
Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
- “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
Victor Hugo
- “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.”
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
- “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost
- “We love the things we love for what they are.”
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
- “You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
E.E. Cummings
- “I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart) I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling).”
Plato
- “Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”
Mary Oliver
- “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Chad Sugg, Monsters Under Your Head
- “If you’re reading this… Congratulations, you’re alive. If that’s not something to smile about, then I don’t know what is.”
Sarah Williams
- “I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
Leonardo da Vinci
- “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”
E.E. Cummings
- “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
- “Resist much, obey little.”
Mary Oliver
- “You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
Robert Frost
- “A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
G.K. Chesterton, Alarms and Discursions
- “Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”
Robert Frost
- “Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire.”
Kahlil Gibran
- “Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.”