“He would, too, have preferred the simplicity and spiritual ease of making the best of poor circumstances to the labour of ineffectively exploiting luxurious opportunities.”

Praising simplicity over futile display and luxury · Memoir prefixed to Richard Watson Dixon's Poems, 1909

• Faith
• Truth

“Temper and sharpen it as you may, your chisel cannot cut itself. We should therefore not expect too much.”

Using a vivid metaphor for the limitations of human reason · Address, Democracy and Education, 1916

• Truth

“An instinctive rightness was essential, but, given that, I did not suppose that the poet's emotions were in any way better than mine, nor mine than another's.”

Separating poetic craft from any claim to superior feeling · Memoir of Digby Mackworth Dolben

• Poetry
• Truth