When two men in business always agree, one of them is unnecessary.

There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight

A little light, like a rushlight / to lead back to splendour.

Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.

As for literature It gives no man a sinecure. And no one knows, at sight, a masterpiece. And give up verse, my boy, There's nothing in it.

Poetry must be as well written as prose.

If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.