Poetry is the gate through which I enter the land of enchantment. Once inside the flaming wall, my limitations fall from me, and my spirit is free.

So much has been given me I have no time to ponder over that which has been denied.

Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. Hear the music of voices, the song of birds, the mighty strains of an orchestra as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow . . . Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Glory in all the facts of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you.

Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

The highest thinkers of the ages, the seers of the tribes and the nations, have been optimists.

Some people are foolish enough to imagine that wealth and power and fame satisfy our hearts: but they never do, unless they are used to create and distribute happiness in the world.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.