There is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music.

I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.

The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled.

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of the Imagination – What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth – whether it existed before or not – for I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of essential Beauty . . .

O let me lead her gently o'er the brook, Watch her half-smiling lips and downward look; O let me for one moment touch her wrist; Let me one moment to her breathing list; And as she leaves me, may she often turn Her fair eyes looking through her locks auburne.

it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

X. I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!” XI. I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side. XII. And this is why I sojourn here, Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is wither’d from the lake, And no birds sing.