Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.

---

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?

---

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

---

All writing is a form of prayer.

---

I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.

---

To silence gossip, don't repeat it.

---

I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination.

---

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.

---

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.

---

A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.

---