"In each art the difficulty of the form is a substitution for the difficulty of direct apprehension and expression of the object. The first difficulty may be more or less overcome, but the second is insuperable; thus every poem begins, or ought to, by a disorderly retreat to defensible positions. Or, rather, by a perception of the hopelessness of direct combat, and a resort to the warfare of spells, effigies, and prophecies. The relation between the artist and reality is an oblique one, and indeed there is no good art which is not consciously oblique. If you respect the reality of the world, you know that you can approach that reality only by indirect means."

"What you hope for Is that at some point of the pointless journey, Indoors or out, and when you least expect it, Right in the middle of your stride, like that, So neatly that you never feel a thing, The kind assassin Sleep will draw a bead And blow your brains out."

"We milk the cow of the world, and as we do We whisper in her ear, "You are not true.""

"Hebetude. It is a graph of a theme that flings The dancer kneeling on nothing into the wings, And Nijinsky hadn't the words to make the laws For learning to loiter in air; he merely said, "I merely leap and pause.""

"A thrush, because I'd been wrong, Burst rightly into song In a world not vague, not lonely, Not governed by me only."

"Try to remember this: what you project Is what you will perceive; what you perceive With any passion, be it love or terror, May take on whims and powers of its own. Therefore a numb and grudging circumspection Will serve you best — unless you overdo it, Watching your step too narrowly, refusing To specify a world, shrinking your purview To a tight vision of your inching shoes, Which may, as soon as you come to think, be crossing An unseen gorge upon a rotten trestle."

"I started in to cry and call his name, Asking forgiveness of his tongueless head. ... I dreamt the past was never past redeeming: But whether this was false or honest dreaming I beg death's pardon now. And mourn the dead."

"Your hands hold roses always in a way that says They are not only yours; the beautiful changes In such kind ways, Wishing ever to sunder Things and things' selves for a second finding, to lose For a moment all that it touches back to wonder."

"Within one of her."

"Losers must have leave to speak."

"Off with his head—; so much for Buckingham."

"The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome Outlives in fame the pious fool that rais'd it."

"And the ripe harvest of the new-mown hay Gives it a sweet and wholesome odour."

"Then let not what I cannot have My cheer of mind destroy. Whilst thus I sing, I am a king, Although a poor blind boy!"

"Oh, how many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding ring!"

"Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks, And he has chambers in King's Bench walks."

"With clink of hammers closing rivets up."

"Words are but empty thanks."

"Our hours in love have wings; in absence, crutches."

"Possession is eleven points in the law."

"Old houses mended, Cost little less than new before they're ended."

"So mourn'd the dame of Ephesus her love, And thus the soldier arm'd with resolution Told his soft tale, and was a thriving wooer."

"I don't see it."

"We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman,—scorned, slighted, dismissed without a parting pang."

"As good be out of the world as out of the fashion."

"I 've lately had two spiders Crawling upon my startled hopes. Now though thy friendly hand has brush'd 'em from me, Yet still they crawl offensive to my eyes: I would have some kind friend to tread upon 'em."

"Stolen sweets are best."

"A weak invention of the enemy."

"Now, by St. Paul, the work goes bravely on."

"Prithee don’t screw your wit beyond the compass of good manners."

"Tea! Thou soft, thou sober, sage, and venerable liquid, thou innocent pretence for bringing the wicked of both sexes together in a morning; thou female tongue-running, smile-smoothing, heart- opening, wink-tipping cordial, to whose glorious insipidity I owe the happiest moment of my life, let me fall prostrate thus, and … adore thee."

"The will for the deed."

"O say what is this thing call'd Light, Which I must ne'er enjoy"

"This business will never hold water."

"Perish that thought! No, never be it said That Fate itself could awe the soul of Richard. Hence, babbling dreams! you threaten here in vain! Conscience, avaunt! Richard ’s himself again! Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds to horse! away! My soul ’s in arms, and eager for the fray."

"Winter is gone, and spring is over. The cuckoo-flowers grow mauver and mauver"

"The most generous of critics, if he is to be discriminating and just, cannot, let me say again, allow that any verse which is profoundly obscure or utterly unmusical, no matter how intellectual in substance, deserves the appellation of poetry. But on a very thin thread of meaning poetry, or a very fair imitation of it, may be hung by the aid of musical sound."

"Imagination in Poetry, as distinguished from mere Fancy, is the transfiguring of the Real, or actual, into the Ideal."

"O'er the wires the electric message came, "He is no better; he is much the same.""

"[I]n all periods of transitional thought and belief the conscience suffers, since its old sanctions have been removed and none other have yet taken their place. It is undermined without being adequately propped up."

"Women are more frequently charming than men, because they are less self-conscious."

"[N]o verse which is unmusical or obscure can be regarded as Poetry, whatever other qualities it may possess."

"The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just the body, but the soul."

"If Man makes Conscience, then being good Is only being worldly wise, And universal brotherhood A comfortable compromise."

"Where in the lily lurks the mind, Where in the rose discern the soul?More mindless still, stream, pasture, lake; The mountains yet more heartless seem. […]It is their silence that appals, Their aspect motionless that awes, When searching spirit vainly calls On the effect to bare the Cause."

"Doth logic in the lily hide, And where's the reason in the rose?"

"English maidens are, in certain respects, to Italian maidens as moonlight unto sunlight and as water unto wine."

"One can put up with, indeed more than put up with, a certain amount of technical carelessness in Poetry, provided it be in other respects of a very high order, as not unoften, for instance, in Shakespeare and Byron. But similar blemishes in a picture would be all but fatal to it in the estimation of connoisseurs, since it would be the first thing that struck them in it."

"[W]henever one wants to cite something wise and true, one has to go either to the ancients or to the eighteenth century for it."