Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by someone I do not know. I admire lolling on a lawn by a water-lilied pond to eat white currants and see goldfish: and go to the fair in the evening if I'm good. There is not hope for that -one is sure to get into some mess before evening.

I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.

The imagination may be compared to Adam's dream-he awoke and found it truth.

Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips, bidding adieu

O magic sleep! O comfortable bird, That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind Till it is hush'd and smooth!

O aching time! O moments big as years!

Some say the world is a vale of tears, I say it is a place of soul-making.