Poetry is the parent of superstition. The History of the Royal Society of London for Improving of Natural Knowledge , 1667. Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind. All poets are mad. Poetry is a kind of ingenious nonsense.
Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Boswell's Life of Johnson . 5 April 1776. Benjamin Disraeli . The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.