Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man; it has become the amusement and delight of the few.

Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult.

What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt Held in cohesion by unresting cells, Which work they know not why, which never halt, Myself unwitting where their Master dwells?

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.

Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once in a minute something generous dies for want of it.