No one who's lived and known reflection Could help but scorn the human host. No one who's sampled life's complexion Could fail to fear his dead past'… - Alexander Pushkin

Love is for every age auspicious,
But for the virginal and young
Its impulses are more propitious
Like vernal storms on meadows sprung:
They freshen in the rain of passion,
Ripening in their renovation –
And life, empowered, sends up shoots
Of richest blooms and sweetest fruits.
But at a late age, dry and fruitless,
The final stage to which we’re led,
Sad is the trace of passions dead:
Thus storms in autumn, cold and ruthless,
Transform the field into a slough,
And strip the trees from root to bough.

Habit to us is given from above:
it is a substitute for happiness.

To “seek inspiration” has always seemed to me a ridiculous and absurd fancy: inspiration cannot be sought out; it must find the poet.