To realize that new world we must prefer the values of freedom and equality above all other values - above personal wealth, technical power and nationalism.

The modern poet has no essential alliance with regular schemes of any sorts.He reserves the right to adapt his rhythm to his mood, to modulate his metre as he progresses. Far from seeking freedom and irresponsibility (implied by the unfortunate term free verse) he seeks a stricter discipline of exact concord of thought and feeling.

The slave may be happy, but happiness is not enough.

But all categories of art, idealistic or realistic, surrealistic or constructivist (a new form of idealism) must satisfy a simple test (or they are in no sense works of art): they must persist as objects of contemplation.

Revolt, it will be said, implies violence; but this is an outmoded, an incompetent conception of revolt. The most effective form of revolt in this violent world we live in is non-violence.

What I do deny is that you can build any enduring society without some such mystical ethos.

I call religion a natural authority, but it has usually been conceived as a supernatural authority.