A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.

Hardship is vanishing, but so is style, and the two are more closely connected than the present generation supposes.

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote, and brings to birth in us also …

Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work.