If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.

We poets would die of loneliness but for women, and we choose our men friends that we may have somebody to talk about women with. Letter to Olivia Shakespeare, 1936

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.

Our own acts are isolated and one act does not buy absolution for another.

What can I but enumerate old themes?

The visible world is no longer a reality and the unseen world no longer a dream.

Before The World Was Made If I make the lashes dark and the eyes more bright and the lips more scarlet, or ask if all be right from mirror after mirror, no vanity's displayed: I'm looking for the face I had before the world was made. What if I look upon a man as though on my beloved, and my blood be cold the while and my heart unmoved? Why should he think me cruel or that he is betrayed? I'd have him love the thing that was before the world was made.