John Keats, (1795-1821) English Poet Quotes

I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom -- one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise.

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity -- it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by someone I do not know. I admire lolling on a lawn by a water-lilied pond to eat white currants and see goldfish: and go to the fair in the evening if I'm good. There is not hope for that -- one is sure to get into some mess before evening.

The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing -- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. Not a select party.

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion -- I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more -- I could be martyred for my religion -- Love is my religion -- I could die for that.

It appears to me that almost any man may, like the spider, spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel.

There's a blush for won't, and a blush for shan't, and a blush for having done it: There's a blush for thought and a blush for naught, and a blush for just begun it.

Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and very fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully avoid.

The Public is a thing I cannot help looking upon as an enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of hostility.

Give me books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by someone I do not know. I admire lolling on a lawn by a water-lilied pond to eat white currants and see goldfish: and go to the fair in the evening if I'm good. There is not hope for that --one is sure to get into some mess before evening.