He ne'er is crowned with immortality Who fears to follow where airy voices lead.
I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.
Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish.
Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer.
I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise.
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.
Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.
The poetry of the earth is never dead.
I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.
I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.
You speak of Lord Byron and me; there is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees I describe what I imagine. Mine is the hardest task.
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.
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.
I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more - I could be martyred for my religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that.
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
Love is my religion - I could die for it.
I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.
Now a soft kiss - Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss.
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.
You are always new, the last of your kisses was ever the sweetest.
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.
