Controversial Sayings

I am distrustful of any rules or public customs which interpose barriers between the leaders and the people.

Democracy, with all its threatening evils, supplies a training-school. It is life's gymnasium, not of good only, but of all.

The older I grow the more I am confirmed in my optimism, my democracy—not of course denying or excusing what is bad—but it is good, not bad, that is common. Beneath all the froth, illiteracy, worse, there is something latent—now and then to break for…

To speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachable of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the flawless triumph of art.

Sweet, sane, still Nakedness in Nature! — ah if poor, sick, prurient humanity in cities might really know you once more! Is not nakedness then indecent? No, not inherently.

They shut me up in Prose — As when a little Girl / They put me in the Closet — Because they liked me 'still' —

The Heart wants what it wants - or else it does not care.

A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King.

Nature is a haunted house--but Art--is a house that tries to be haunted.

I like a look of Agony, Because I know it's true.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant— / Success in Circuit lies

Truth is so rare, it is delightful to tell it.

Saying nothing sometimes says the most.

I cannot live with you – it would be life – And life is over there – behind the Shelf –

Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes.

Success is counted sweetest / By those who ne'er succeed.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.