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Your goodness must have some edge to it -- else it is none.

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Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

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It is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of a plant or an animal it has...more

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Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, stand an...more

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Nature enhances her beauty, to the eye of loving men, from their belief that the poet is beholding her shows at the same time. He is isolated among hi...more

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Those who are esteemed umpires of taste, are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination...more

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One man thinks justice consists in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very remiss in this duty and makes the credito...more

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Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

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In art, the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can imagine.

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Artists must be sacrificed to their art. Like bees they must put their lives into the sting they give.

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Perpetual modernness is the measure of merit in every work of art.

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A more secret, sweet, and overpowering beauty appears to man when his heart and mind open to the sentiment of virtue.

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Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounce...more

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We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

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Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they ...more