Kenneth Rexroth

“Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense: the creative act.”

“The holiness of the real is always there, accessible and inexpungible.”

“Love is the confrontation of two solitudes.”

“The first law of aesthetics is that the human visage is the most beautiful of objects.”

“What is the purpose of the artist? ...to advance the frontiers of consciousness.”

“The process of getting old is the process of being piled on by responsibility.”

“Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.”

“The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men whose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains.”

“The free, creative, responsible individual is the highest form of manhood.”

“Rebellion is the life of art. Revolution is the death of art.”

“Speech is a social institution.”

“Art is the final cunning of the human species.”

“The world is a nest of crows; some are grabbing mouthfuls from the sky, some are fighting over a piece of meat.”

“The secularization of poetry is a recent and temporary phenomenon in Western history.”

“Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst.”

“The avant-garde is a dying phenomenon, and it has been dying for a hundred years.”