49 Greatest John Keats Quotes That Will Make You Think

John Keats was a British Romantic poet who developed a style now known as “Ode.” His poetry has been translated into many languages and studied around the world. Born on October 31, 1795, in London, and died on February 23, 1821, in Rome. He attended school before studying law at university but eventually took up writing poetry and published his first collection by 1816.

Many people are familiar with Keats’ story as he wrote many of his poems during his short lifetime. However, it is less common knowledge that he also wrote letters to his friend Joseph Severn, which provides insight into this great poet’s life.

He is best known for his use of imagery and emotion in his poems, characterized by a strong influence from classical literature.

Here are his most famous quotes on the beauty of life, emotions, and sensuality that will make you think – Check this out

49 John Keats Quotes That Will Make You Think

“Nothing ever becomes real till experienced – even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it”

“Pleasure is oft a visitant; but pain clings cruelly to us.”

“was it a vision or a waking dream? Fled is that music–do I wake or sleep?”

“Whatever the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth -whether it existed before or not”

“I must choose between despair and energy – I choose the latter.”

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”

“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.”

“What the imagination seizes as beauty must be the truth.”

“Nothing ever becomes real ’til it is experienced – even a proverb is no proverb until your life has illustrated it.”

“If poetry does not come as naturally as leaves to a tree, then it better not come at all.”

“What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.”

“Scenery is fine — but human nature is finer.”

“Two souls with but a single thought. Two hearts that beat as one!”

“A man’s life of any worth is a continual allegory, and very few eyes can see the mystery of his life, a life like the scriptures, figurative.”

“The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate.”

“Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.”

“We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.”

“My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.”

“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.”

“Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.”

“If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.”

“The excellence of every art is its intensity.”

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

“You are always new. The last of your kisses was even the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest.”

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

“Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, and scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by? ”

“A long poem is a test of invention which I take to be the Polar star of poetry, as fancy is the sails, and imagination the rudder.“

“I find I cannot exist without Poetry”

“There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.“

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard, are sweeter”

“I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.”

“The creature has a purpose, and his eyes are bright with it.”

“Through buried paths, where sleepy twilight dreams The summer time away.”

“With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.”

“You are always new, the last of your kisses was ever the sweetest.”

“Time, that aged nurse, rocked me to patience.”

“There is an old saying “well begun is half done“–’tis a bad one. I would use instead–Not begun at all ’till half done.“

“When it is moving on luxurious wings, The soul is lost in pleasant smotherings.”

“I wish to believe in immortality – I wish to live with you forever.”

“I want a brighter word than bright”

“Knowledge enormous makes a god of me.”

“The imagination may be compared to Adam’s dream–he awoke and found it truth.“

“Failure is in a sense the highway to success, as each discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true.”

“Life is divine Chaos. It’s messy, and it’s supposed to be that way.”

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”

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

“You cannot conceive how I ache to be with you: how I would die for one hour…”

“I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.”

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