“A certain keenness of disposition, prompting to the most active exertions, is the first ingredient in the happiness of man. Happiness is the mind and the object in full possession of one another. A man's life will be always pleasant, if he enter with all his heart and soul into the concerns of it.”

Defining happiness through energetic engagement rather than passive contentment · Personal reflection (as recorded in biographical accounts)

• Action
• Happiness
• Life

“It is impossible for me to express the supreme glow of delight that your approval has afforded me. [...] really I felt all my hair creep on my head, and stand upright like a bottle brush.”

Describing the physical thrill of receiving praise from a celebrated contemporary · Letter to Lord Byron, 7 March 1812

• Ambition
• Poetry
• Praise

“My manner of composing poetry is very different, and, I believe, much more singular. Let the piece be of what length it will, I compose and correct it wholly in my mind, or on a slate, ere ever I put pen to paper; and then I write it down as fast as the A, B, C. When once it is written, it remains in that state; it being with the utmost difficulty that I can be brought to alter one syllable.”

Describing a method of composition shaped by the limited spare time of a working shepherd · Autobiographical Memoir

• Craft
• Poetry
• Writing