Quotations and Literature Forum

Hello,

I am having trouble remembering a quotation that says something along the lines of "in every era we remember the poets/writers and not politicians", or perhaps "it is the poets and writers that stand out, not the politicians."

Does anyone remember where this might be from? I would appreciate any help!

Many thanks.

I took a shot at it, but didn't have much luck.

“A good poem is a paradigm of good politics—of people talking to each other with honest subtlety at a profound level.”
~ Derek Mahon [“Poetry in Northern Ireland,” 20th Century Studies, 4 (1970), 93]

“Poetry and politics, like Church and State, should be separate. And for the same reasons: mysteries distort the rational processes which ideally prevail in social relations; while ideologies confiscate the poet’s special passport to terra incognita.”
~ Edna Longley [“Poetry and Politics in Northern Ireland,” Crane Bag, 9:1 (1985), 26-37]

Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians.
~ Muhammad Iqbal

"If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live.
— John F. Kennedy (1956, Boston)