“Why, what is to live? Not to eat and drink and breathe,—but to feel the life in you down all the fibres of being, passionately and joyfully.”

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of being and ideal grace.I love thee to the level of every day'sMost quiet need, by sun and candle-light.I love thee freely, as men strive for right.I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.”

“She lived, we'll say,A harmless life, she called a virtuous life,A quiet life, which was not life at all(But that she had not lived enough to know)”

“Love me sweet With all thou art Feeling, thinking, seeing; Love me in the Lightest part, Love me in full Being.”

“What is art but the life upon the larger scale, the higher. When, graduating up in a spiral line of still expanding and ascending gyres, it pushes toward the intense significance of all things, hungry for the infinite?”

“Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow;They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats,And flare up bodily, wings and all. What then?Who's sorry for a gnat... or a girl?”

“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.”