111 Quotes & Sayings By John Keats

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. John Keats

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

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. John Keats

Here lies one whose name was writ on water. John Keats

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

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. John Keats

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. John Keats

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! John Keats

You are always new. THe last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. When you pass'd my window home yesterday, I was fill'd with as much admiration as if I had then seen you for the first time... Even if you did not love me I could not help an entire devotion to you. 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

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. . John Keats

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) . John Keats

I have good reason to be content, for thank God I can read andperhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths. John Keats

The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mindabout nothing -- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. John Keats

Scenery is fine -but human nature is finer John Keats

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors-- No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever--or else swoon to death. Glanzvoller Stern! wär ich so stet wie du, Nicht hing ich nachts in einsam stolzer Pracht! SchautŽ nicht mit ewigem Blick beiseite zu, Einsiedler der Natur, auf hoher WachtBeim Priesterwerk der Reinigung, das die See, Die wogende, vollbringt am Meeresstrand;Noch starrt ich auf die Maske, die der SchneeSanft fallend frisch um Berg und Moore band. Nein, doch unwandelbar und unentwegt MöchtŽ ruhn ich an der Liebsten weicher Brust, Zu fühlen, wie es wogend dort sich regt, Zu wachen ewig in unruhiger Lust, Zu lauschen auf des Atems sanftes Wehen -So ewig leben - sonst im Tod vergehen! . John Keats

Nothing ever becomes real 'til it is experienced. John Keats

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

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

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. John Keats

I have clung To nothing, lov’d a nothing, nothing seen Or felt but a great dream! John Keats

Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?---" On death John Keats

Touch has a memory. John Keats

Touch has a memory. O say, love, say, What can I do to kill it and be free? John Keats

Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds Along the pebbled shore of memory! Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be Upon thy vaporous bosom, magnified To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride, And golden keel'd, is left unlaunch'd and dry. John Keats

Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnom̬d mineРUnweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade John Keats

That men, who might have tower'd in the van Of all the congregated world, to fan And winnow from the coming step of time All chaff of custom, wipe away all slime Left by men-slugs and human serpentry, Have been content to let occasion die, Whilst they did sleep in love's Elysium. 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

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

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

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

To Sleep"O soft embalmer of the still midnight, Shutting, with careful fingers and benign, Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine: O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes, Or wait the "Amen, " ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling charities. Then save me, or the passed day will shine Upon my pillow, breeding many woes, – Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul. John Keats

But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet.. Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. John Keats

Nor do we merely feel these essences for one short hour no, even as these trees that whisper round a temple become soon dear as the temples self, so does the moon, the passion posey, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light unto our souls and bound to us so fast, that wheather there be shine, or gloom o'er cast, They always must be with us, or we die. John Keats

Call the world, if you please, "the Vale of Soul Making". Then you will find out the use of the world.. There may be intelligences or sparks of the divinity in millions -- but they are not Souls till they acquire identities, till each one is personally itself. Intelligences are atoms of perception -- they know and they see and they are pure, in short they are God. How then are Souls to be made? How then are these sparks which are God to have identity given them -- so as ever to possess a bliss peculiar to each one's individual existence. How, but in the medium of a world like this? This point I sincerely wish to consider, because I think it a grander system of salvation than the Christian religion -- or rather it is a system of Spirit Creation..I can scarcely express what I but dimly perceive -- and yet I think I perceive it -- that you may judge the more clearly I will put it in the most homely form possible. I will call the world a school instituted for the purpose of teaching little children to read. I will call the human heart the hornbook used in that school. And I will call the child able to read, the soul made from that school and its hornbook. Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? A place where the heart must feel and suffer in a thousand diverse ways.. As various as the lives of men are -- so various become their souls, and thus does God make individual beings, souls, identical souls of the sparks of his own essence. This appears to me a faint sketch of a system of salvation which does not affront our reason and humanity.. John Keats

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

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

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

Beauty is truth truth beauty. John Keats

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

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. John Keats

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for their religion I have shudder'd at it. I shudder no more. I could be martyr'd for my religion Love is my religion And I could die for that. I could die for you. John Keats

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

Ever let the Fancy roam Pleasure never is at home. John Keats

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. John Keats

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

Oh for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts. John Keats

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

There is a budding morrow in midnight. John Keats

Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings Conquer all mysteries by rule and line Empty the haunted air the gnomed mine -Unweave a rainbow. John Keats

A drainless shower of light is poesy 'tis the supreme of power 'tis might half slumb'ring on its own right arm. John Keats

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

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. John Keats

There is a budding tomorrow in midnight. John Keats

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. John Keats

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. John Keats

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

Love is my religion - I could die for it. John Keats

Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer. 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 new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish. John Keats

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

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. John Keats

There is nothing stable in the world uproar's your only music. John Keats

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

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. John Keats

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced. John Keats

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty, ' - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. John Keats