“I notice the poems we love the best — the poems that really live — have always blood and pulse and heart-warmth in them. There's the thing!”

Living verse, for him, was the verse that still felt warm · Letter to an old friend, 4 March 1883

• Feeling
• Heart
• Poetry

“When you awaken some morning and hear that somebody or other has been discovered, you can put it down as a fact that he discovered himself years ago.”

Fame as the late public name for long private labour · Commonly quoted with his remarks on persistence, 1890s

• Fame
• Recognition
• Work

“The most essential factor is persistence — the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come.”

On the staying power that outlasts the inevitable setbacks of a working life · Quoted in The Writer, 1897

• Determination
• Persistence
• Work