Learning why one great book is just like every other great book is the key to understanding literature

Learning why one great book is just like every other great book is the key to understanding literature

Do not worry about the incarnation of ideas. If you are a poet, your works will contain them without your read more

Do not worry about the incarnation of ideas. If you are a poet, your works will contain them without your knowledge -- they will be both moral and national if you follow your inspiration freely.

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.

I made a compact with myself that in my person literature should
stand by itself, of itself, and for read more

I made a compact with myself that in my person literature should
stand by itself, of itself, and for itself.

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.

. . . A man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters
amongst men of read more

. . . A man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters
amongst men of the world.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough of literature.

Our high respect for a well-read man is praise enough of literature.

Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation.

Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation.