“We have been so often told that poetry exists in inanimate objects, that we seem to believe it, and thus become the dupes of our own phraseology.”

A warning against treating picturesque objects as if they were themselves the source of verse · Prose on poetry in the Pope controversy

• Language
• Nature
• Poetry

“In the highest kinds of poetry the themes or passions handled should be of the general or elemental kind, and not the transient manners of any society.”

He ranks enduring human passion above the polish of a particular age · Critical writings on the principles of poetry

• Passion
• Poetry
• Society

“Images drawn from nature are poetically finer than those drawn from art.”

The brief formula that set him against Byron, Campbell and the Pope party · Critical writings on Pope and the principles of poetry

• Art
• Nature
• Poetry