“What is literature but the expression of moods by the vehicle of symbol and incident?”

“All men live in sufferingI know as few can know,Whether they take the upper roadOr stay content on the low.”

“Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enameling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.”

“All art is in the last analysis an endeavor to condense as out of the flying vapor of the world an image of human perfection, and for its own and not for the art's sake.”

“The women that I picked spoke sweet and lowAnd yet gave tongue. "Hound voices" were they all.”

“O, how full of briers is this working-day world!”

“O time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.”

“It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover.”

“My endeavorsHave ever come too short of my desires.Yet filed with my abilities.”

“To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.”

“...lest too light winning make the prize light.”

“Be merry; you have cause, so have we all, of joy; for our escape is much beyond our loss . . . . then wisely weigh our sorrow with our comfort.”

“Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.— Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!”

“Thou mak'st me merry: I am full of pleasure; let us be jocund”

“This is the very ecstasy of love, whose violent property ordoes itself and leads the will to desperate undertakings.”

“I dote on his very absence.”

“I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip”

“O, how full of briers is this working-day world!”

“To take arms against a sea of troubles.”

“Fight to the last gasp.”

“If ever thou be'st bound in thy scarf and beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage.”

“And makes me poor indeed.”

“Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,To make my end too sudden.”