“The thought of what America would be likeIf the Classics had a wide circulationTroubles my sleep (Cantico del Sole)”

“Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.”

“The individual cannot think and communicate his thought, the governor and legislator cannot act effectively or frame his laws without words, and the solidity and validity of these words is in the care of the damned and despised litterati...when their very medium, the very essence of their work, the application of word to thing goes rotten, i.e. becomes slushy and inexact, or excessive or bloated, the whole machinery of social and of individual thought and order goes to pot.”

“I would hold the rosy, slender fingers of the dawn for you.”

“You have been second always. Tragical?No. You preferred it to the usual thing:One dull man, dulling and uxorious,One average mind- with one thought less, each year.”

“M'amour, m'amourwhat do I love andwhere are you?That I lost my centerfighting the worldThe Dreams clashand are shattered-and that I tried to make a paradisoterrestre.I have tried to write ParadiseDo not moveLet the wind speakthat is paradiseLet the Gods forgive what Ihave madeLet those I love try to forgivewhat I have made.”

“My pawing over the ancients and semi-ancients has been one struggle to find out what has been done, once and for all, better than it can ever be done again, and to find out what remains for us to do, and plenty does remain, for if we still feel the same emotions as those who launched a thousand ships, it is quite certain that we came on these feelings differently, through different nuances, by different intellectual gradations. Each age has its own abounding gifts yet only some ages transmute them into matters of duration.”