Great men are rare, poets are rarer, but the great man who is a poet, transfiguring his greatness, is the rarest of all events.

If it is an imperfect word, no external circumstance can heighten its value as poetry.

When the poet makes his perfect selection of a word, he is endowing the word with life.

The poet's perfect expression is the token of a perfect experience; what he says in the best possible way he has felt in the best possible way, that is, completely.

For while the subjects of poetry are few and recurrent, the moods of man are infinitely various and unstable. It is the same in all arts.

Poetry being the sign of that which all men desire, even though the desire be unconscious, intensity of life or completeness of experience, the universality of its appeal is a matter of course.

Great men are rare, poets are rarer, but the great man who is a poet, transfiguring his greatness, is the rarest of all events.