“Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.”

“Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreamsAnd our desires.”

“She says, "But in contentment I still feelThe need for imperishable bliss."Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreamsAnd our desires.Is there no change of death in paradise?Does ripe fruit never fall? or do the boughsHang always heavy in that perfect sky,Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,With rivers like our own that seek for seasThey never find, the same receding shoresThat never touch with inarticulate pang?”

“I do not know which to prefer,The beauty of inflectionsOr the beauty of innuendosThe blackbird whistlingOr just after.”

“Beauty is momentary in the mind --The fitful tracing of a portal;But in the flesh it is immortal.The body dies; the body's beauty lives.So evenings die, in their green going,A wave, interminably flowing.”

“Conceptions are artificial. Perceptions are essential.”

“The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself.”