The poetry of the earth is never dead.
The opinion I have of the generality of women – who appear to me as children to whom I would rather give a sugar Plum than my time, form a barrier against Matrimony which I rejoice in.
The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up one’s mind about nothing – to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts, not a select party.
The music, yearning like a God in pain.
The imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream – he awoke and found it truth.
The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate.
That purple-lined palace of sweet sin.
Stop and consider! life is but a day.
Shed no tear! O shed no tear! The flower will bloom another year. Weep no more! O weep no more! Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.
Scenery is fine – but human nature is finer.
Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critique on his own Works.
Poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity; it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
