JKJohn Keats

137 collected words

John Keats

Life dates: 1795 AD — 1821 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

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Quotations and sayings

01c. 1808 AD

Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings?

John Keats / quote

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02c. 1808 AD

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne, Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: 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 stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise, Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

John Keats / quote

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03c. 1808 AD

E'en like the passage of an angel's tear That falls through the clear ether silently.

John Keats / quote

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04c. 1808 AD

The poetry of earth is never dead.

John Keats / quote

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05c. 1808 AD

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

John Keats / quote

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06Undated

He never is crowned / With immortality, who fears to follow / Where airy voices lead.

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07Undated

There is no fiercer hell than failure in a great object.

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08Undated

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive.

John Keats / quote

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09Undated

There is a budding morrow in midnight.

John Keats / quote

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10Undated

Stop and consider! Life is but a day; A fragile dewdrop on its perilous way From a tree’s summit; a poor Indian’s sleep While his boat hastens to the monstrous steep Of Montmorenci,—Why so sad a moan? Life is the rose’s hope while yet unblown; The reading of an ever-changing tale; The light uplifting of a maiden’s veil; A pigeon tumbling in clear summer air; A laughing school boy, without grief or care, Riding the springy branches of an elm.

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11Undated

With a waist and with a side White as Hebe’s, when her zone Slipt its golden clasp, and down Fell her kirtle to her feet, While she held her goblet sweet, And Jove grew languid.

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12Undated

Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain: Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain: As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.

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13Undated

The moving waters at their priest-like task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores.

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14Undated

I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful, a faery’s child; Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long; For sideways would she lean, and sing A faery’s song.

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15Undated

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and boon: Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest, And on her silver cross soft amethyst, And on her hair a glory, like a saint.

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16Undated

Albeit failure in any cause produces a correspondent misery in the soul, yet it 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 eschew.

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17Undated

The genius of Shakespeare was an innate university.

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18Undated

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.

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19Undated

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

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20Undated

I have been astonished that men could die martyrsfor their religion--I have shuddered at it,I shudder no more.I could be martyred for my religion.Love is my religionand I could die for that.I could die for you.My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet.

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21Undated

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?

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22Undated

Nothing ever becomes real till experienced – even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it

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23Undated

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 / quote

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24Undated

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.

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