John Keats Quotes & Sayings

I have nothing to speak of but my self-and what can I say but what I feel — John Keats

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 — John Keats

Think of my Pleasure in Solitude, in comparison of my commerce with the world - there I am a child - there they do not know me not even my most intimate acquaintance - I give into their feelings as though I were refraining from irritating a little child - Some think me middling, others silly, other foolish - every one thinks he sees my weak side against my will; when in thruth it is with my will - I am content to be thought all this because I have in my own breast so graet a resource. This is one great reason why they like me so; because they can all show to advantage in a room, and eclipese from a certain tact one who is reckoned to be a good Poet - I hope I am not here playing tricks 'to make the angels weep': I think not: for I have not the least contempt for my species; and though it may sound paradoxical: my greatest elevations of Soul leave me every time more humbled - Enough of this - though in your Love for me you will not think it enough. — John Keats

I find that I can have no enjoyment in the World but continual drinking of Knowledge - I find there is no worthy pursuit but the idea of doing some good for the world — John Keats

No such thing as the world becoming an easy place to save your soul in. — John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. — John Keats

Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips, bidding adieu — John Keats

And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun/ And she forgot the blue above the trees,/ And she forgot the dells where waters run,/ And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;/ She had no knowledge when the day was done,/ And the new morn she saw not: but in peace/ Hung over her sweet basil evermore,/ And moisten'd it with tears unto the core. — John Keats

It appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel. — John Keats

I should write for the mere yearning and fondness I have for the beautiful, even if my night's labors should be burnt every morning and no eye shine upon them. — John Keats

There is an old saying "well begun is half done" - 'tis a bad one. I would use instead, "Not begun at all till half done;" so according to that I have not begun my Poem and consequently (a priori) can say nothing about it. — John Keats

For axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses. — John Keats

Blessed is the healthy nature; it is the coherent, sweetly co-operative, not incoherent, self-distracting, self-destructive one! — John Keats

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

Where are the songs of Spring? Aye, where are they? Think not of them; thou has thy music too. — John Keats

How does the poet speak to men with power, but by being still more a man than they — John Keats

My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk — John Keats

Tis very sweet to look into the fair
and open face of heaven, - to breathe a prayer
full in the smile of the blue firmament. — John Keats

All my clear-eyed fish, Golden, or rainbow-sided, or purplish, Vermilion-tail'd, or finn'd with silvery gauze ... My charming rod, my potent river spells ... — John Keats

Wine is only sweet to happy men. — John Keats

To bear all naked truths, And to envisage circumstance, all calm, That is the top of sovereignty — John Keats

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy, — John Keats

Even bees, the little almsmen of spring bowers, know there is richest juice in poison-flowers. — John Keats

To Autumn
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core. — John Keats

Soft closer of our eyes! Low murmur of tender lullabies! — John Keats

Touch'd with miseries
She seem'd at once, some penanced lady elf,
Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.
- Lamia (John Keats) — John Keats

There is a budding tomorrow in midnight. — John Keats

Time, that aged nurse, rocked me to patience. — John Keats

She press'd his hand in slumber; so once more
He could not help but kiss her and adore. — John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. — John Keats

When it is moving on luxurious wings,
The soul is lost in pleasant smotherings. — John Keats

Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave
Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot;
Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit,
Where long ago a giant battle was;
And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass
In every place where infant Orpheus slept.
Feel we these things? - that moment have we stept
Into a sort of oneness, and our state
Is like a floating spirit's. But there are
Richer entanglements, enthralments far
More self-destroying, leading, by degrees,
To the chief intensity: the crown of these
Is made of love and friendship, and sits high
Upon the forehead of humanity. — John Keats

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new? — John Keats

To Hope
When by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my 'mind's eye' flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head. — John Keats

For many a time I have been half in love with easeful death. Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, to take into the air my quiet breath — John Keats

Pleasure is oft a visitant; but pain Clings cruelly to us. — John Keats

Works of genius are the first things in the world. — John Keats

It keeps eternal whisperings around desolate shores — John Keats

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

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

I think we may class the lawyer in the natural history of monsters. — John Keats

What is more gentle than a wind is summer? — John Keats

Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed my freedom. Will you confess this in the Letter you must write immediately, and do all you can to console me in it - make it rich as a draught of poppies to intoxicate me - write the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair. — John Keats

Parting they seemed to tread upon the air,
Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart
Only to meet again more close. — John Keats

Who alive can say 'Thou art no Poet - mayst not tell thy dreams'? Since every man whose soul is not a clod Hath visions, and would speak, if he had loved, And been well nurtured in his mother tongue. — John Keats

Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop From low hung branches; little space they stop; But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek; Then off at once, as in a wanton freak: Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings Pausing upon their yellow flutterings. — John Keats

The uttered part of a man's life, let us always repeat, bears to the unuttered, unconscious part a small unknown proportion. He himself never knows it, much less do others. — John Keats

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity ... — John Keats

And how they kist each other's tremulous eyes. — John Keats

I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest. — John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: It's loveliness increases: it will never pass into nothingness. Pleasure is oft a visitant, but pain clings cruelty to us. — John Keats

I wish you could invent some means to make me at all happy without you. Every hour I am more and more concentrated in you; everything else tastes like chaff in my mouth. — John Keats

Let us away, my love, with happy speed;
There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,
- Drown'd all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead.
Awake! arise! my love and fearless be,
For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee. — John Keats

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

Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes. — John Keats

No stir of air was there, Not so much life as on a summer's day Robs not one light seed from the feather'd grass, But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. — John Keats

I find I cannot exist without Poetry — John Keats

A little noiseless noise among the leaves, Born of the very sigh that silence heaves. — John Keats

But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I lay them at your feet. Tread lightly, for you tread on my dreams. — John Keats

Everything that reminds me of her goes through me like a spear. — John Keats

You are to me an object so intensely desirable that the air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy — John Keats

And we will shade
Ourselves whole summers by a river glade;
And I will tell thee stories of the sky,
And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy,
My happy love will overwing all bounds!
O let me melt into thee! let the sounds
Of our close voices marry at their birth;
Let us entwine hoveringly! — John Keats

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone! — John Keats

I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me. — John Keats

It can be said of him, when he departed he took a Man's life with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time. — John Keats

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject. — John Keats

Their woes gone by, and both to heaven upflown, To bow for gratitude before Jove's throne. — John Keats

I cannot capture your grace in words; I am profoundly enchanted by the flowing complexity in you. — John Keats

What shocks the virtuous philosopher, delights the chameleon poet. — John Keats

Severn - I - lift me up - I am dying - I shall die easy; don't be frightened - be firm, and thank God it has come. — John Keats

Tis "the witching time of night", / Orbed is the moon and bright, / And the stars they glisten, glisten, / Seeming with bright eyes to listen - — John Keats

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold. — 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

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake,
Would all their colours from the sunset take:
From something of material sublime,
Rather than shadow our own soul's day-time
In the dark void of night. For in the world
We jostle, - but my flag is not unfurl'd ... — John Keats

The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate. — John Keats

I have a habitual feeling of my real life having past, and that I am now leading a posthumous existence. — John Keats

What, man, do you mistake the hollow sky For a thronged tavern ... ? — John Keats

My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you. — John Keats

From his companions, and set forth to walk, Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk: Over the solitary hills he fared, Thoughtless at first, but ere eve's star appeared His phantasy was lost, where reason fades, In the calm'd twilight of Platonic shades. Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near - Close to her passing, in indifference drear, His silent sandals swept the mossy green; So neighbour'd to him, and yet so unseen — John Keats

I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried- La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall! — John Keats

What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth — John Keats

It struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. — John Keats

Load every rift with ore. — John Keats

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

I stood tip-toe upon a little hill, The air was cooling, and so very still, That the sweet buds which with a modest pride Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems, Had not yet lost those starry diadems Caught from the early sobbing of the morn. — John Keats

For, by all the stars That tend thy bidding, I do think the bars That kept my spirit in are burst - that I Am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky! How beautiful thou art! — John Keats

On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence. — John Keats

Every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer. — John Keats

Death is Life's high meed. — John Keats

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers. — John Keats

The thought, the deadly thought of solitude. — John Keats

There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in the rubbish. — John Keats

To stay youthful, stay useful. — John Keats

I am convinced more and more day by day that fine writing is next to fine doing, the top thing in the world. — John Keats

Souls of poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Have ye tippled drink more fine
Than mine host's Canary wine?"
Sweeter than those dainty pies
Of venison? O generous food!
Drest though bold Robin Hood
Would, wit his maid Marian,
Sup and bowse from horn and can
"I have heard that on a day
Mine host's sign-board flew away,
Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory,
Underneath a new old sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack
The Mermaid in the Zodiac. — John Keats

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." — John Keats

Softly the breezes from the forest came,
Softly they blew aside the taper's flame;
Clear was the song from Philomel's far bower;
Grateful the incense from the lime-tree flower;
Mysterious, wild, the far-heard trumpet's tone;
Lovely the moon in ether, all alone:
Sweet too, the converse of these happy mortals,
As that of busy spirits when the portals
Are closing in the west; or that soft humming
We hear around when Hesperus is coming.
Sweet be their sleep. — John Keats

I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else. — John Keats

O aching time! O moments big as years! — John Keats

He ne'er is crowned with immortality Who fears to follow where airy voices lead. — John Keats