I consider him of no account who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.

I examine my own being, and find there a world, but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness and living power. Then everything swims before my senses, and I smile and dream while pursuing my way through the world.

I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.

Generally speaking, an author's style is a faithful copy of his mind. If you would write a lucid style, let there first be light in your own mind; and if you would write a grand style, you ought to have a grand character.

As for what I have done as a poet, I take no pride in whatever. Excellent poets have lived at the same time with me, poets more excellent lived before me, and others will come after me. But that in my country I am the only person who knows the truth in the difficult science of colors-of that, I say, I am not a little proud, and here have a consciousness of superiority to many.

The decline in literature indicates a decline in the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.

I let everyone follow his own bent, that I may be free to follow mine.