Good poetry could not have been otherwise written than it is. The first time you hear it, it sounds rather as if copied out of some invisible tablet in the Eternal mind than as if arbitrarily composed by the poet.

The essence of age is intellect. Wherever that appears, we call it old.

Good criticism is very rare and always precious.

Other world? There is no other world; here or nowhere is the whole fact.

I believe it is the conviction of the purest men, that the net amount of man and man does not much vary. Each is incomparably superior to his companion in some faculty. His want of skill in other directions, has added to his fitness for his own work.

How painful to give a gift to any person of sensibility, or of equality! It is next worst to receiving one

What is indispensable to inspiration? ...sound sleep and the provocation of a good book or a companion.