A moment’s thought is passion’s passing knell.
Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong, And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.
I came to feel how far above All fancy, pride, and fickle maidenhood, All earthly pleasure, all imagined good, Was the warm tremble of a devout kiss.
How sad it is when a luxurious imagination is obliged in self defense to deaden its delicacy in vulgarity, and riot in things attainable that it may not have leisure to go mad after things that are not.
I find that I can have no enjoyment in the world but the continual drinking of knowledge. I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good for the world.
You might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore.
Stop and consider! life is but a day.
The imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream-he awoke and found it truth.
Health is the greatest of blessings – with health and hope we should be content to live.
Ay, on the shores of darkness there is a light, and precipices show untrodden green; there is a budding morrow in midnight; there is triple sight in blindness keen.
Many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death.
To stay youthful, stay useful.
Or thou might’st better listen to the wind, Whose language is to thee a barren noise, Though it blows legend-laden through the trees.
Works of genius are the first things in the world.
All writing is a form of prayer.
A man’s life of any worth is a continual allegory.
O, sorrow! Why dost borrow Heart’s lightness from the merriment of May?
How beautiful, if sorrow had not made Sorrow more beautiful than Beauty’s self.
Soft closer of our eyes! Low murmur of tender lullabies!
Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown.