An aphorism ought to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world like a little work of art and complete in itself like a hedgehog.

I can no longer say my love and your love; they are both alike in their perfect mutuality.

In order to be able to write well upon a subject, one must have ceased to be interested in it; the thought which is to be soberlyexpressed must already be entirely past and no longer be one's actual concern.

We do not see God, but everywhere we see something divine; first and most typically in the center of a reasonable man, in the depth of a living human product. You can directly feel and think nature, the universe, but not the Godhead. Only the man among men can poetize and think divinely and live with religion.

Many a witty inspiration is like the surprising reunion of befriended thoughts after a long separation.

In every good poem everything must be both deliberate and instinctive. That is how the poem becomes ideal.

Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.