Quotes from John Keats

I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.

Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, and many goodly states and kingdoms seen.

If poetry does not come as naturally as leaves to a tree, then it better not come at all.

Life is but a day; A fragile dewdrop on its perilous way From a tree's summit.

It ought to come like the leaves to the trees, or it better not come at all.

In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity.

We have oftener than once endeavoured to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to Shaftesbury, which however we can find nowhere in his works, that "ridicule is the test of truth."

To Sorrow I bade good-morrow, And thought to leave her far away behind; But cheerly, cheerly, She loves me dearly: She is so constant to me, and so kind.

Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.

I equally dislike the favor of the public with the love of a woman - they are both a cloying treacle to the wings of independence.

Are there not thousands in the world who love their fellows even to the death, who feel the giant agony of the world, and more, like slaves to poor humanity, labor for mortal good?

Touch has a memory. O say, love say, What can I do to kill it and be free In my old liberty?

Where the nightingale doth sing Not a senseless, tranced thing, But divine melodious truth.

I never can feel certain of any truth, but from a clear perception of its beauty.

The imagination may be compared to Adam's dream-he awoke and found it truth.

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination.

Of love, that fairest joys give most unrest.

I never was in love - yet the voice and the shape of a woman has haunted me these two days.

And there shall be for thee all soft delight That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in!

Touch has a memory. O say, love, say, What can I do to kill it and be free?

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more - I could be martyred for my religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that.

Failure ... is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully avoid.

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for their religion I have shudder'd at it. I shudder no more. I could be martyr'd for my religion Love is my religion And I could die for that. I could die for you.