Zitate von Robert Graves

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Robert Graves

Geburtstag: 24. Juli 1895
Todesdatum: 7. Dezember 1985

Robert Graves, im deutschen Sprachraum Robert von Ranke-Graves , war ein britischer Schriftsteller und Dichter.

Zitate Robert Graves

„Another War soon gets begun,
A dirtier, a more glorious one;
Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in;
It's the cruellest team will win.
So hold your nose against the stink
And never stop too long to think.“

— Robert Graves
Context: Another War soon gets begun, A dirtier, a more glorious one; Then, boys, you'll have to play, all in; It's the cruellest team will win. So hold your nose against the stink And never stop too long to think. Wars don't change except in name; The next one must go just the same, And new foul tricks unguessed before Will win and justify this War. "The Next War".

„Though I am a poor old man
Worth very little,
Yet I suck at my long pipe
At peace in the sun,
I do not fret nor much regret
That my work is done.“

— Robert Graves
Context: I am an old man With my bones very brittle, Though I am a poor old man Worth very little, Yet I suck at my long pipe At peace in the sun, I do not fret nor much regret That my work is done. "Brittle Bones".

„The frog-pool wanted a king.
Jove sent them Old King Log.“

— Robert Graves
Context: The frog-pool wanted a king. Jove sent them Old King Log. I have been as deaf and blind and wooden as a log. The frog-pool wanted a king. Let Jove now send them Young King Stork. Caligula's chief fault: his stork-reign was too brief. My chief fault: I have been far too benevolent. I repaired the ruin my predecessors spread. I reconciled Rome and the world to monarchy again. Rome is fated to bow to another Caesar. Let him be mad, bloody, capricious, wasteful, lustful. King Stork shall prove again the nature of kings. By dulling the blade of tyranny I fell into great error. By whetting the same blade I might redeem that error. Violent disorders call for violent remedies. Yet I am, I must remember, Old King Log. I shall float inertly in the stagnant pool. Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out. Ch. 30.

„Wisdom made him old and wary
Banishing the Lords of Faery.“

— Robert Graves
Context: Wisdom made him old and wary Banishing the Lords of Faery. Wisdom made a breach and battered Babylon to bits: she scattered To the hedges and ditches All our nursery gnomes and witches. "Babylon".

„I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus … this, that and the other“

— Robert Graves
Context: I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus … this, that and the other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles), who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as ‘Claudius the Idiot]’, or ‘That Claudius’, or ‘Claudius the Stammerer’, or ‘Clau-Clau-Claudius’, or at best as ‘Poor Uncle Claudius’, am now about to write this [[strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the ‘golden predicament’ from which I have never since become disentangled. Ch. 1.

„Love, Fear and Hate and Childish Toys
Are here discreetly blent“

— Robert Graves
Context: Love, Fear and Hate and Childish Toys Are here discreetly blent; Admire, you ladies, read, you boys, My Country Sentiment. "A First Review".

„I do not love the Sabbath,
The soapsuds and the starch,
The troops of solemn people
Who to Salvation march.“

— Robert Graves
Context: I do not love the Sabbath, The soapsuds and the starch, The troops of solemn people Who to Salvation march. I take my book, I take my stick On the Sabbath day, In woody nooks and valleys I hide myself away. To ponder there in quiet God's Universal Plan, Resolved that church and Sabbath Were never made for man. "The Boy out of Church".

„Where is good English to be found? Not among those who might be expected to write well professionally.“

— Robert Graves
Context: Where is good English to be found? Not among those who might be expected to write well professionally. Schoolmasters seldom write well: it is difficult for any teacher to avoid either pomposity or, in the effort not to be pompous, a jocular conversational looseness. The clergy suffer from much the same occupational disability: they can seldom decide whether to use "the language of the market-place" or Biblical rhetoric. Men of letters usually feel impelled to cultivate an individual style — less because they feel sure of themselves as individuals than because they wish to carve a niche for themselves in literature; and nowadays an individual style usually means merely a peculiar range of inaccuracies, ambiguities, logical weaknesses and stylistic extravagancies. Trained journalists use a flat, over-simplified style, based on a study of what sells a paper and what does not, which is inadequate for most literary purposes. Ch. 3: "Where Is Good English to Be Found?"

„We forget cruelty and past betrayal,
Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.“

— Robert Graves
Context: But we are gifted, even in November, Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense Of her nakedly worn magnificence We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall. "The White Goddess," lines 18–22, from Poems and Satires (1951).

„Having now been in the trenches for five months, I had passed my prime.“

— Robert Graves
Context: Having now been in the trenches for five months, I had passed my prime. For the first three weeks, an officer was of little use in the front line... Between three weeks and four weeks he was at his best, unless he happened to have any particular bad shock or sequence of shocks. Then his usefulness gradually declined as neurasthenia developed. At six months he was still more or less all right; but by nine or ten months, unless he had been given a few weeks' rest on a technical course, or in hospital, he usually became a drag on the other company officers. After a year or fifteen months he was often worse than useless. Ch.16 On being in the trenches in France in 1915.

„Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray,
And so decide who started
This bloody war, and who's to pay,
But he must be stout-hearted,
Must sit and stake with quiet breath,
Playing at cards with Death.“

— Robert Graves
Context: Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray, And so decide who started This bloody war, and who's to pay, But he must be stout-hearted, Must sit and stake with quiet breath, Playing at cards with Death. Don't plume yourself he fights for you; It is no courage, love, or hate, But let us do the things we do; It's pride that makes the heart be great; It is not anger, no, nor fear — Lucasta he's a Fusilier, And his pride keeps him here. "To Lucasta on Going to the War — For the Fourth Time"

„Men feared, adored, and obeyed the matriarch; the hearth which she tended in a cave or hut being their earliest social centre, and motherhood their prime mystery.“

— Robert Graves
Context: Ancient Europe had no gods. The Great Goddess was regarded as immortal, changeless, and omnipotent; and the concept of fatherhood had not been introduced into religious thought. She took lovers, but for pleasure, not to provide her children with a father. Men feared, adored, and obeyed the matriarch; the hearth which she tended in a cave or hut being their earliest social centre, and motherhood their prime mystery. Volume 1, Introduction.

„He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about.“

— Robert Graves
Context: My tutor I have already mentioned, Marcus Porcius Cato who was, in his own estimation at least, a living embodiment of that ancient Roman virtue which his ancestors had one after the other shown. He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about. He boasted particularly of Cato the Censor, who of all characters in Roman history is to me perhaps the most hateful, as having persistently championed the cause of "ancient virtue" and made it identical in the popular mind with churlishness, pedantry and harshness. Ch. 5.

„Cuinchy bred rats. They came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly.“

— Robert Graves
Context: Cuinchy bred rats. They came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly. While I stayed here with the Welsh, a new officer joined the company... When he turned in that night, he heard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand. Ch.14.

„He is older than the seas,
Older than the plains and hills,
And older than the light that spills
From the sun's hot wheel on these.“

— Robert Graves
Context: He is older than the seas, Older than the plains and hills, And older than the light that spills From the sun's hot wheel on these. He wakes the gale that tears your trees, He sings to you from window sills. "The God Called Poetry".

„He roars in his anger, he scratches, he looks not up.“

— Robert Graves
Context: Down on his knees he sinks, the stiff-necked King, Stoops and kneels and grovels, chin to the mud. Out from his changed heart flutter on startled wing The fancy birds of his Pride, Honour, Kinglihood. He crawls, he grunts, he is beast-like, frogs and snails His diet, and grass, and water with hand for cup. He herds with brutes that have hooves and horns and tails, He roars in his anger, he scratches, he looks not up. "Nebuchadnezzar's Fall"

Zitate von Robert Graves

Robert Graves

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