John Keats

I have nothing to speak of but my self-and what can I say but what I feel

I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.

Call the world if you please "The vale of soul-making."

I myself am pursuing the same instinctive course as the veriest human animal you can think of — I am, however young, writing at random — straining at particles of light in the midst of a great darkness — without knowing the bearing of any …

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced — Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it.

A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory — and very few eyes can see the mystery of life — a life like the Scriptures, figurative... Lord Byron cuts a figure, but he is not figurative. Shakespeare led a life of allegory: his works …

A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence; because he has no identity — he is continually informing — and filling some other body.

The poetical character... is not itself — it has no self — it is every thing and nothing — It has no character — it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it fair or foul, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated. — It has as …

I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death.

I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.

The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself

I begin to get a little acquainted with my own strength and weakness. Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

There is an awful warmth about my heart like a load of immortality.

I am certain I have not a right feeling towards women - at this moment I am striving to be just to them, but I cannot. Is it because they fall so far beneath my boyish imagination? When I was a schoolboy I thought a fair woman a pure …

I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me.

Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses: we read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.

Every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer.

Scenery is fine — but human nature is finer.

Many have original minds who do not think it — they are led away by custom — Now it appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own citadel.

We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us — and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle or amaze with …

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.

Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers.

Works of genius are the first things in this world.

They will explain themselves — as all poems should do without any comment.