I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever dew; And on thy cheek a fading rose Fast withereth too.

The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.

Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers.

Though the most beautiful creature were waiting for me at the end of a journey or a walk; though the carpet were of silk, the curtains of the morning clouds; the chairs and sofa stuffed with cygnet's down; the food manna, the wine beyond claret, the window opening on Winander Mere, I should not feel -or rather my happiness would not be so fine, as my solitude is sublime.

Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

All clean and comfortable I sit down to write.

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