Whoever wants to accomplish great things must devote to a lot of profound thought to details.

We are wont to condemn self-love; but what we really mean to condemn is contrary to self-love. It is that mixture of selfishness and self-hate that permanently pursues us, that prevents us from loving others, and that prohibits us from losing ourselves.

History is the most dangerous product which the chemistry of the mind has concocted. Its properties are well known. It produces dreams and drunkenness. It fills people with false memories, exaggerates their reactions, exacerbates old grievances, torments them in their repose, and encourages either a delirium of grandeur or a delusion of persecution. It makes whole nations bitter, arrogant, insufferable and vainglorious.

The future, like everything else, is no longer quite what it used to be.

The power of verse stems from an indefinable harmony between when it says and what it is.

In poetry everything which must be said is almost impossible to say well.

What one wrote playfully, another reads with tension and passion; what one wrote with tension and passion, another reads playfully.