“A poet is a nightingale who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.”

“I'm...like a poet hiddenIn the light of thought Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.”

“All things exist as they are perceived: at least in relation to the percipient. 'The mind is its own place, and of itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.' But poetry defeats the curse which binds us to be subjected to the accident of surrounding impressions. And whether it spreads its own figured curtain or withdraws life's dark veil from before the scene of things, it equally creates for us a being within our being.”

“it were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle of its color and odor, as seek to transfuse from one language into another the creations of a poet”

“I arise from dreams of thee,And a spirit in my feetHas led me- who knows how?To thy chamber-window, Sweet!”

“Poet's food is love and fame.”

“Poets and philosophers are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”