“The poet's function is to describe, not the thing that has happened, but a kind of thing that might happen, i.e., what is possible as being probable or necessary...Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.”

“History describes what has happened, poetry what might. Hence poetry is something more philosophic and serious than history; for poetry speaks of what is universal, history of what is particular.”

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”

“Accordingly, the poet should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities.”

“It is likely that unlikely things should happen”

“[I]t is rather the case that we desire something because we believe it to be good than that we believe a thing to be good because we desire it. It is the thought that starts things off.”

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.”