The great secret of morals is love, or a going out of our own nature,
and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in
thought, action, or person, not our own. A man, to be greatly good, must
imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place
of another, and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species
must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is imagination,
and poetry administers to the effect by acting upon the
cause.--_Shelley._

Truth shines the brighter clad in verse.--_Pope._

It is a shallow criticism that would define poetry as confined to
literary productions in rhyme and metre. The written poem is only poetry
_talking_, and the statue, the picture, and the musical composition are
poetry _acting_. Milton and Goethe, at their desks, were not more truly
poets than Phidias with his chisel, Raphael at his easel, or deaf
Beethoven bending over his piano, inventing and producing strains which
he himself could never hope to hear.--_Ruskin._

Thought in blossom.--_Bishop Ken._

It is a ruinous misjudgment, too contemptible to be asserted, but not
too contemptible to be acted upon, that the end of poetry is
publication.--_George MacDonald._

Wisdom married to immortal verse.--_Wordsworth._

By poetry we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to
produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of
words what the painter does by means of colors.--_Macaulay._

Thoughts, that voluntary move harmonious numbers.--_Milton._

The world is so grand and so inexhaustible that subjects for poems
should never be wanted. But all poetry should be the poetry of
circumstance; that is, it should be inspired by the Real. A particular
subject will take a poetic and general character precisely because it is
created by a poet. All my poetry is the poetry of circumstance. It
wholly owes its birth to the realities of life.--_Goethe._

Nothing which does not transport is poetry. The lyre is a winged
instrument.--_Joubert._

Perhaps there are no warmer lovers of the muse than those who are only
permitted occasionally to gain her favors. The shrine is more reverently
approached by the pilgrim from afar than the familiar worshiper. Poetry
is often more beloved by one whose daily vocation is amid the bustle of
the world. We read of a fountain in Arabia upon whose basin is
inscribed, "Drink and away;" but how delicious is that hasty draught,
a