It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but… — Richard Wilbur

It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but he does address a great congress of persons who dwell at the back of his mind, a congress of all those who have taught him and whom he has admired; they constitute his ideal audience and his better self.

Richard WilburPoet · American · b. 1921

More from Richard Wilbur

There are other measures of self-respect for a man, than the number of clean shirts he puts on every day. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect. — George Bernard Shaw
To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. — William Shakespeare
What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you. — Richard Wilbur
To this congress the poet speaks not of peculiar and personal things, but of what in himself is most common, most anonymous, most fundamental, most true of all men. — Richard Wilbur