John Keats

He is buried in Romes Protestant cemetery, only a few yards from the tomb of his colleague Percy Bysshe Shelley , under the epitaph he chose for himself-- "Here lies one whose name was writ in water."

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.

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?,Nothing ever becomes real till experienced – even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it,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.

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.

Here lies one whose name was writ on water.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard, are sweeter,For axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses.

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

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

If I am destined to be happy with you here—how short is the longest Life—I wish to believe in immortality—I wish to live with you for ever.

Wherein lies happiness? In that which becksOur ready minds to fellowship divine,A fellowship with essence; till we shine,Full alchemiz’d, and free of space. BeholdThe clear religion of heaven!,When by my solitary hearth I sit,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.

Yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits.

The world is too brutal for me—I am glad there is such a thing as the grave—I am sure I shall never have any rest till I get there.

The poetry of the earth is never dead.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheardAre sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.

Whatever the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth -whether it existed before or not,To SorrowI 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.

If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;Conspiring with him how to load and blessWith 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 shellsWith 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.

I wish I was either in your arms full of faith, or that a Thunder bolt would strike me.

Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes.

No one can usurp the heights. . . But those to whom the miseries of the worldAre misery, and will not let them rest.

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thoughtAs doth eternity. . .

My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you – I am forgetful of everything 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 was dissolving – I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you … 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.

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

O that our dreamings all, of sleep or wake, Would all their colours from the sunset take.

But this is human life: the war, the deeds, The disappointment, the anxiety, Imagination’s struggles, far and nigh,All human; bearing in themselves this good, That they are still the air, the subtle food, To make us feel existence. -Keats, EndymionThis is the ‘goal’ of the soul path – to feel existence; not to overcome life’s struggles and anxieties, but to know life first hand, to exist fully in context. (Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul, p. 260),I have good reason to be content,for thank God I can read andperhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths.

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

My imagination is a monastery, and I am its monk,Besides, a long poem is a test of invention, which I take to be the Polar star of Poetry, as Fancy is the sails - and Imagination the rudder.

I have clung To nothing, lov’d a nothing, nothing seen Or felt but a great dream!,Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?---"On death,Touch has a memory.

I must choose between despair and Energy──I choose the latter.

I was too much in solitude, and consequently was obliged to be in continual burning of thought, as an only resource.

Now a soft kiss - Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss.

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

Beauty is truth - truth beauty - that is all Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.

The excellence of every art is its intensity capable of making all disagreeables evaporate from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

Beauty is truth truth beauty.

A proverb is no proverb to you till life has illustrated it.

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.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever Its loveliness increases it will never Pass into nothingness.

Love in a hut with water and a crust Is - Love forgive us! - cinders ashes dust.

Ever let the Fancy roam Pleasure never is at home.

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 ferment the character undecided the way of life uncertain.

I wish to believe in immortality - I wish to live with you forever.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

Oh for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts.

A proverb is no proverb to you till life has illustrated it.

There is a budding morrow in midnight.

Soft closer of our eyes! Low murmur of tender lullabies!,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.

There is a budding tomorrow in midnight.

I have met with women who I really think would like to be married to a poem and to be given away by a novel.

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 very fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterward carefully avoid.

There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.

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

Love is my religion - I could die for it.

Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer.

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

Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.

I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.

You are always new, the last of your kisses was ever the sweetest.

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.

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.

What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases it will never pass into nothingness.

With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.

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.

My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.

I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise.

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.

Poetry should. . . should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.

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. .