John Keats Quotes

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination — what the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth — whether it existed before or not.

Some think I have lost that poetical ardour and fire 'tis said I once had- the fact is, perhaps I have; but, instead of that, I hope I shall substitute a more thoughtful and quiet power.

But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways

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

..Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

We have woven a web, you and I, attached to this world but a separate world of our own invention.

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

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!

I was too much in solitude, and consequently was obliged to be in continual burning of thought, as an only resource.

Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.

Here lies one whose name was writ on water.

Knowledge enormous makes a god of me.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again

Then felt I like like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Like stout Cortes when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific-and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise
Silent upon a peak in Darien

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toil me back from thee to my sole self!