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John Keats Quotes - Page 7

All Quotes Ambition Art Autumn Beauty Children Darkness Death Depression Dying Excellence Experience Failure Feelings Genius Giving Gold Grieving Happiness Hate Heart Heaven Home Hope Imagination Immortality Inspirational Joy Kissing Knowledge Life Literature Love Lying Moon Morning Music Nature Pain Passion Philosophy Pleasure Poetry Pride Religion Romance Romantic Love Sadness Science Silence Silver Sleep Solitude Sorrow Soul Spring Summer Time Truth Vision War Water Wine Winter Writing

Where soil is, men grow, Whether to weeds or flowers.

Where soil is, men grow, Whether to weeds or flowers.

Weed, Flower, Men

John Keats (1853). “The Poetical Works of John Keats. A New Edition”, p.33

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art-- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite.

Art, Stars, Night

'Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art' (1819)

The poetry of earth is never dead When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide I cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead.

Running, Voice, Bird

'On the Grasshopper and Cricket' (1817)

Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes.

Eye, Bored, Pensive

John Keats, Jack Stillinger (1982). “Complete Poems”, p.359, Harvard University Press

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 one assertion, of any one opinion. Yet may I not in this be free from sin?

Writing, Animal, Thinking

John Keats (1820). “The Complete Works of John Keats”, p.38

What shocks the virtuous philosopher, delights the chameleon poet.

Delight, Philosopher, Virtue

John Keats (2015). “John Keats - The Man Behind The Lyrics: Life, letters, and literary remains: Complete Letters and Two Extensive Biographies of one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.714, e-artnow

Already with thee! tender is the night. . . But here there is no light. . .

Night, Light, Tender Is The Night

1820 Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes and Other Poems,'Ode to a Nightingale', stanza 4.

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance.

Night, Thinking, Hands

1818 'When I Have FearsThat I May Cease to Be'.

Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight; With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white, And taper fingers catching at all things, To bind them all about with tiny rings.

Sweet, Wings, White

John Keats, Helen Vendler (1990). “Poetry Manuscripts at Harvard”, p.34, Harvard University Press

one of the most mysterious of semi-speculations is, one would suppose, that of one Mind's imagining into another

Mind, Mysterious, Speculation

Beth Lau, John Keats (1998). “Keats's Paradise Lost”, p.74, University Press of Florida

A long poem is a test of invention which I take to be the Polar star of poetry, as fancy is the sails, and imagination the rudder.

Stars, Long, Imagination

Letter to Benjamin Bailey, 8 October 1817, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 170

I find that I can have no enjoyment in the world but the continual drinking of knowledge. I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good for the world.

Drinking, Ideas, World

John Keats (2002). “Selected Letters”, p.83, Oxford University Press, USA

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.

Writing, Poetry, Soul

Letter to J. H. Reynolds, 3 February 1818, in H. E. Rollins (ed.) 'The Letters of John Keats' (1958) vol. 1, p. 224

I could be martyred for my religion. Love is my religion and I could die for that. I could die for you.

Inspiration, Love Is, Beautiful Love

John Keats (1914*). “The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats”, p.414, Рипол Классик

Whatever the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth -whether it existed before or not

Beauty, Art, Imagination

Letter to Benjamin Bailey, 22 Nov. 1817

She press'd his hand in slumber; so once more He could not help but kiss her and adore.

Kissing, Romantic Love, Hands

John Keats (1818). “Endymion: A Poetic Romance”, p.181

Their woes gone by, and both to heaven upflown, To bow for gratitude before Jove's throne.

Gratitude, Heaven, Thrones

John Keats, Helen Vendler (1990). “Poetry Manuscripts at Harvard”, p.38, Harvard University Press

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet.

Sweet, Flower, Feet

'Ode to a Nightingale' (1820) st. 5

Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed my freedom. Will you confess this in the Letter you must write immediately, and do all you can to console me in it — make it rich as a draught of poppies to intoxicate me —write the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair.

Writing, Kissing, Letters

John Keats (2002). “Selected Letters”, p.245, Oxford University Press, USA

Who, of men, can tell That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would swell To melting pulp, that fish would have bright mail, The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale, The meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones, The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones, Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet, If human souls did never kiss and greet?

Sweet, Flower, Science

'Endymion' (1818) bk. 1, l. 835

Tall oaks branch charmed by the earnest stars Dream and so dream all night without a stir.

Dream, Stars, Night

John Keats (1818). “The Complete Works of John Keats”, p.132

Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks Our ready minds to fellowship divine, A fellowship with essence; till we shine, Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. Behold The clear religion of heaven!

Lying, Essence, Space

John Keats (2015). “John Keats: Hyperion (Unabridged): An Epic Poem from one of the most beloved English Romantic poets, best known for his Odes, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Ode to Indolence, Ode to Psyche, Ode to Fanny, Lamia and more”, p.129, e-artnow

O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,-- Nature's observatory--whence the dell, In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep 'Mongst boughs pavilion'd, where the deer's swift leap Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.

Rivers, Solitude, Foxgloves

John Keats (2016). “Keats: 'Ode to a Nightingale' and Other Poems”, p.13, Michael O'Mara Books

Where the nightingale doth sing Not a senseless, tranced thing, But divine melodious truth.

Divine, Nightingales

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1829). “The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. Complete in One Volume”

Souls of poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host's Canary wine?

Wine, Mermaid, Soul

'Lines on the Mermaid Tavern' (1820)

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