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Yet ah! why should they know their fate?Since sorrow never comes too late,And happiness too swiftly flies.Thought would destroy their read more
Yet ah! why should they know their fate?Since sorrow never comes too late,And happiness too swiftly flies.Thought would destroy their paradise.No more; where ignorance is bliss,'Tis folly to be wise. - Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no read more
If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion.
The walls are the publishers of the poor.
The walls are the publishers of the poor.
I am never long, even in the society of her I love, without yearning for the company of my lamp read more
I am never long, even in the society of her I love, without yearning for the company of my lamp and my library.
Author: A fool, who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting the generations read more
Author: A fool, who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting the generations to come.
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.
All that non-fiction can do is answer questions. It's fiction's business to ask them.
All that non-fiction can do is answer questions. It's fiction's business to ask them.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great, / The pen is mightier than the sword.
Beneath the rule of men entirely great, / The pen is mightier than the sword.