Poetry is a whim of Nature in her lighter moods; it requires nothing but its own madness and, lacking that, it becomes a soundless cymbal, a belfry without a bell.

Why should I be ashamed to describe what nature was not ashamed to create?

I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is greater or better than friendship.

Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.

Nature without exercise is a seed shut up in a pod, and art without practice is nothing.

Flee laziness which while it produces an immediate delight, ends in the sorrow of repentance. And know that nature without exercise is a seed shut up in the pod, and art without practice is nothing.

Even when I'm railed at, I get my quota of renown.