I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination.

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All writing is a form of prayer.

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Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.

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Stop and consider! life is but a day

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The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.

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To silence gossip, don't repeat it.

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A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.

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A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore; it’s to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out. It is an experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept mystery.

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Failure is in a sense the highway to success, as each discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true.

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Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.

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