The world is too brutal for me—I am glad there is such a thing as the grave—I am sure I shall never have any rest till I get there.
The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.
I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.