Quotations From JOHN KEATS

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• 11.

  I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion—I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more—I could be martyred for my religion—Love is my religion—I could die for that.

  John Keats (1795-1821), British poet. letter, Oct. 13, 1819, to his fiancée Fanny Brawne. Letters of John Keats, no. 160, ed. Frederick Page (1954).
  
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• 12.

  "If I should die," said I to myself, "I have left no immortal work behind me—nothing to make my friends proud of my memory—that I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered."

  John Keats (1795-1821), British poet. letter, Feb. 1820, to Fanny Brawne. Letters of John Keats, no. 186, ed. Frederick Page (1954). Describing his thoughts during his illness.
  
  Read more quotations about / on: memory, beauty, work, time
• 13.

  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. Not a select party.

  John Keats (1795-1821), British poet. letter, Sept. 17-27, 1819, to his brother and sister-in-law, George and Georgiana Keats. Letters of John Keats, no. 156, ed. Frederick Page (1954).
• 14.

  The Public ... a thing I cannot help looking upon as an enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of hostility.

  John Keats (1795-1821), British poet. Letter, April 9, 1818. Letters of John Keats, no. 60, ed. Frederick Page (1954). Keats continued, "I never wrote one single line of poetry with the least shadow of public thought." See also Keats's comment under "criticism, professional."
• 15.

  I always made an awkward bow.

  John Keats (1795-1821), British poet. letter, Nov. 30, 1820. Letters of John Keats, no. 242, ed. Frederick Page (1954). Last words of the last letter sent by Keats, following his remark, "I can scarcely bid you goodbye, even in a letter." Two weeks earlier, desperately ill with tuberculosis, the poet had arrived in Rome, where he was to die Feb. 23, 1821.
• 16.

  Though a quarrel in the streets is a thing to be hated, the energies displayed in it are fine; the commonest man shows a grace in his quarrel.

  John Keats (1795-1821), British poet. letter, written Feb. 14-May 3, 1819, to his brother and sister-in-law, George and Georgiana Keats. Letters of John Keats, no. 123, ed. Frederick Page (1954).
• 17.

  I would jump down Etna for any public good—but I hate a mawkish popularity.

  John Keats (1795-1821), British poet. Letter, April 9, 1818. Letters of John Keats, no. 60, ed. Frederick Page (1954).
  
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• 18.

  Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.

  John Keats (1795-1821), British poet. letter, Oct. 9, 1818. Letters of John Keats, no. 90, ed. Frederick Page (1954). Despite Shelley's assertion in his preface to his elegy Adonais that Keats had suffered from the savage criticism of Endymion (published April 1818)Mwhich, Shelley claimed, "produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind," and led to Keats' last, fatal illness—Keats himself described Endymion, in the same letter quoted above, as "slip-shod": "Had I been nervous about its being a perfect piece, & with that view asked advice, & trembled over every page, it would not have been written."
  
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• 19.

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

  John Keats (1795-1821), British poet. letter, Nov. 22, 1817. Letters of John Keats, no. 31, ed. Frederick Page (1954).
  
  Read more quotations about / on: imagination, truth, heart
• 20.

  Health is my expected heaven.

  John Keats (1795-1821), British poet. Letter, March 1, 1820, to his fiancée Fanny Brawne. Letters of John Keats, no. 194, ed. Frederick Page (1954). Keats died of tuberculosis.
  
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