John Keats > Quotes

“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

“I have been astonished that men could die martyrs
for their religion--
I have shuddered at it,
I shudder no more.
I could be martyred for my religion.
Love is my religion
and I could die for that.
I could die for you.”
― John Keats

“I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination.”
― John Keats

“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”
― John Keats, Letters of John Keats

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.”
― John Keats

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
― John Keats

“Carpe diem. Seize the day.”
― John Keats

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

“Nothing ever becomes real 'til it is experienced.”
― John Keats

“Touch has a memory.”
― John Keats

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

“Life is but a day:
A fragile dewdrop on its perilious way
From a trees summit”
― John Keats

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”
― John Keats

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.”
― John Keats

“But I being poor, have only my dreams. I lay them at your feet...Tread softly; for you tread on my dreams.”
― John Keats

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”
― John Keats

“I want a brighter word than bright”
― John Keats

“Whatever the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth -whether it existed before or not”
― John Keats

“You are always new. The last of your kisses was even the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement
the gracefullest.”
― John Keats

“I have good reason to be content,
for thank God I can read and
perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths.”
― John Keats

“I cannot exist without you - I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again - my Life seems to stop there - I see no further. You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I were dissolving... I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion - I have shudder'd at it - I shudder no more - I could be martyr'd for my Religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that - I could die for you. My creed is Love and you are its only tenet - You have ravish'd me away by a Power I cannot resist.”
― John Keats

“I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.”
― John Keats

“I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.”
― John Keats

“There is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music.”
― John Keats

“Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--- No---yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever---or else swoon in death. ”
― John Keats

“The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind
about nothing -- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.”
― John Keats

“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To case upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!”
― John Keats

“Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. 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 afterwards carefully avoid.”
― John Keats

“Here lies one whose name was writ on water.”
― John Keats

“We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.”
― John Keats

“The excellence of every Art is its intensity.”
― John Keats, Complete Poems and Selected Letters

“My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk”
― John Keats

“This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou would wish thine own heart dry of blood,
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calm'd. See, here it is--
I hold it towards you.”
― John Keats

“O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!”
― John Keats, Letters of John Keats

“You have absorb'd me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving.”
― John Keats

“It ought to come like the leaves to the trees, or it better not come at all.”
― John Keats

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases;
It will never
Pass into nothingness.”
― John Keats

“To Solitude

O solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,—
Nature's observatory—whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.
But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd,
Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee. ”
― John Keats

“Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad…”
― John Keats

“It keeps eternal whisperings around desolate shores”
― John Keats

“My mind has been the most discontented and restless one that ever was put into a body too small for it.”
― John Keats

“Now a soft kiss - Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss.”
― John Keats

“I wish to believe in immortality-I wish to live with you forever.”
― John Keats

“Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one!...John Keats”
― John Keats

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

“To feel forever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever-or else swoon in death.”
― John Keats

“The creature has a purpose, and his eyes are bright with it.”
― John Keats

“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.”
― John Keats

“Already with thee! tender is the night. . .
But here there is no light. . .”
― John Keats

“I scarcely remember counting upon happiness—I look not for it if it be not in the present hour—nothing startles me beyond the moment. The setting sun will always set me to rights, or if a sparrow come before my Window I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel.”
― John Keats