A nation's poets are its true owners; and by the stroke of the pen they convey the title-deeds of its real possessions to strangers and aliens.

"Old times" never come back and I suppose it's just as well. What comes back is a new morning every day in the year, and that's better.

The poet craves emotion, and feeds the fire that consumes him, and only under this condition is he baptized with creative power.

You must find the ideas that have some promise in them... It is not enough to just have ideas.

Shakespeare is, essentially, the emanation of the Renaissance. The overflow of his fame on the Continent in later years was but the sequel of the flood of the Renaissance in Western Europe. He was the child of that great movement, and marks its height as it penetrated the North with civilization.

Our understanding of Shakespeare already depends largely on the vitality of Renaissance elements in our education. Each man must live in his own generation, as the saying is; but the generations are bound together by the golden links of the great tradition of civilization.

The sense that someone else cares always helps because it is the sense of love.