Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.

Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.

Ce qui fait le poete, n'est-ce pas l'amour, la recherche desesperee du moindre rayon de soleil d'autrefois jouant sur le parquet d'une chambre d'enfant?

Klopstock was questioned regarding the meaningof a passage in his poem. He replied, 'God and I both knew what it meant once; now God alone knows.'

True poetry is a function of awakening. It awakens us, but it must retain the memory of previous dreams.