Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.

Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.

Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it.

Twin-sister of Religion, Selfishness.

We look before and after, And pine for what is not Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Obscenity, which is ever blasphemy against the divine beauty in life, is a monster for which the corruption of society forever brings forth new food, which it devours in secret.

Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, the lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.