It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor.
The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.
If one were loyal to one's nation only because it was good and true ... one would not be loyal to any nation but to truth and goodness. The idea of patriotism would have no place either in our dictionaries or our lives.
There is something self-defeating in the too-conscious pursuit of pleasure.
A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is a joke
Emotion is the surest arbiter of a poetic choice, and it is the priest of all supreme unions in the mind