The poet sees things as they look. Is this having a faculty the less? or a sense the more?

Many men spend their lives in gazing at their own shadows, and so dwindle away into shadows thereof.

Leaves are light, and useless, and idle, and wavering, and changeable; they even dance; and yet God in his wisdom has made them a part of oaks. And in so doing he has given us a lesson, not to deny the stout-heartedness within because we see the lightsomeness without.

We like slipping, but not falling; our real anxiety is to be tempted enough.

In a mist the heights can for the most part see each other; but the valleys cannot.

If Painting be Poetry's sister, she can only be a sister Anne, who will see nothing but a flock of sheep, while the other bodies forth a troop of dragoons with drawn sabres and white-plumed helmets.

Nature is mighty. Art is mighty. Artifice is weak. For nature is the work of a mightier power than man. Art is the work of man under the guidance and inspiration of a mightier power. Artifice is the work of mere man, in the imbecility of his mimic understanding.