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.

Through the dancing poppies stole A breeze, most softly lulling to my soul.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.

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.

A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.

Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.

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.

Open afresh your rounds of starry folds, Ye ardent Marigolds.

And when thou art weary I'll find thee a bed, Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head.

Neither poetry, nor ambition, nor love have any alertness of countenance as they pass by me.

You are always new, the last of your kisses was ever the sweetest.

Everything burns if the flame is hot enough. The world is nothing but a crucible.

On the whole, I prefer Christmas as an adult than I did as a child.

The strength of a man's virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.

What's up is faith, what's down is heresy.

Country manners. Even if somebody phones up to tell you your house is burning down, they ask first how you are.

The preservation of health is easier than the cure for disease.

The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.

There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad decision in time to install a better one.

Riches are not forbidden, but the pride of them is.