A writer is justly called 'universal' when he is understood within the limits of his civilization, though that be bounded by a country or an age.

You may name a bronze statue 'Liberty,' or a painted figure in a city hall 'Commerce,' or a marble form in a temple 'Athene' or 'Venus;' but what is really there is only a representation of a single woman.

I believe that ideal character in its perfection is potentially in every man who is born into the world.

I seldom deal in symbolisms; if there be hidden meanings in my verse, they are there without my knowledge.

Much of a poet's experience takes place in imagination only; the life he tells is oftenest the life that he strongly desires to live, and the power, the purity and height of his utterance may not seldom be the greater because experience here uses the voices of desire.

"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.

It is not meant that the artist, in arriving at truth, must follow the way of the scientist, or, in stating it, the way of the philosopher.