John Keats: Quotes

• Adolescence

  The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness.John Keats: Endymion

• Beauty

  “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
   Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
  John Keats

• Beauty

  A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
  Its loveliness increases; it will never
  Pass into nothingness.
  John Keats: Endymion

• Discontent

  Ever let the Fancy roam,
  Pleasure never is at home.
  John Keats

• Fanaticism

  Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave
  A paradise for a sect.
  John Keats

• Imagination

  Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
   Are sweeter.
  John Keats

• Invention and Discovery

  Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
   When a new planet swims into his ken;
  Or like stout Cortez 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.
  John Keats

• Maxims and Proverbs

  Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced—even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it.John Keats

• Philosophy

  Do not all charms fly
  At the mere touch of cold philosphy?
  . . .
  Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
  Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
  Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine—
  Unweave a rainbow.
  John Keats

• Poetry and Poets

  Poetry should surprise by a fine excess, and not by singularity; it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.John Keats