A poet must sing for his own people.

Progress comes by experiment, and this from ennui that leads to voyages, wars, revolutions, and plainly to change in the arts of expression; that cries out to the imagination, and is the nurse of the invention whereof we term necessity the mother.

Fashion is a potency in art, making it hard to judge between the temporary and the lasting.

Science has but one fashion-to lose nothing once gained.

Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine art; the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach true excellence.

The poet is a creator, not an iconoclast, and never will tamely endeavor to say in prose what can only be expressed in song.

Natural emotion is the soul of poetry, as melody is of music; the same faults are engendered by over-study of either art; there is a lack of sincerity, of irresistible impulse in both the poet and the, composer.