“Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings?”

If poetry does not come as naturally as leaves to a tree, then it better not come at all.

The poetry of earth is never dead When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide I cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead.

Nothing ever becomes real till experienced – even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it.

My mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it.

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Some say the world is a vale of tears, I say it is a place of soul-making.

Philosophy will clip an angel’s wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine – Unweave a rainbow.

If I should die, I have left no immortal work behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered.

The creature has a purpose, and his eyes are bright with it.

The open sky sits upon our senses like a sapphire crown – the Air is our robe of state – the Earth is our throne, and the Sea a mighty minstrel playing before it.

I love your hills and I love your dales, And I love your flocks a-bleating; but oh, on the heather to lie together, With both our hearts a-beating!

To stay youthful, stay useful.

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affections, and the truth of imagination.

You are always new. The last of your kisses was even the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest.

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.

My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.

A man’s greatest moment in life is when his enemy lays vanquished, his village aflame, his herds driven before you and his weeping wives and daughters are clasped to your breast.

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.

After attacking the sacred majesty of Kings, I shall scarcely excite surprise by adding my firm persuasion that every profession, in which great subordination of rank constitutes its power, is highly injurious to morality.

I feel I have lived my whole life, day to day, without planning anything and I like it that way. Things change so fast, one minute you are here, the next minute you are on a plane, it’s great fun.

Either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the world is not yet anywhere near to being fully civilized.

Great leaders create more leaders, not followers.

I have sighed when obliged to confess that either Nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial.

Innocence is a splendid thing, only it has the misfortune not to keep very well and to be easily misled.