Philosophy is antipoetic. Philosophize about mankind and you brush aside individual uniqueness, which a poet cannot do without self-damage. Unless, for a start, he has a strong personal rhythm to vary his metrics, he is nothing. Poets mistrust philosophy. They know that once the heads are counted, each owner of a head loses his personal identify and becomes a number in some government scheme: if not as a slave or serf, at least as a party to the device of majority voting, which smothers personal views.

Genius not only diagnoses the situation but supplies the answers.

The function of poetry is religious invocation of the muse; its use is the experience of mixed exaltation and horror that her presence excites.

About this business of being a gentleman: I paid so heavily for the fourteen years of my gentleman's education that I feel entitled, now and then, to get some sort of return.

You mean that people who continue virtuous in an old-fashioned way must inevitably suffer in times like these?

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned.