Nature's first green is gold.

It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound-that he will never get over it.

Scholars and artists thrown together are often annoyed at the puzzle of where they differ. Both work from knowledge; but I suspectthey differ most importantly in the way their knowledge is come by. Scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like burrs where they walk in the fields.

What is required is sight and insight- then you might add one more: excite.

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.

One of the hardest things in life to accept is a called third strike.