“Poets aim either to benefit or to please, or to say what is both agreeable and useful for life.”

Original: Aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere vitae. — Reflects the classic dual mandate of literature to educate and entertain. · Ars Poetica (Latin)

• Pleasure
• Poetry
• Utility

“I love to read in bed.”

A wonderfully simple glimpse of a private pleasure and lifelong attachment to reading. · Auto-Analysis

• Pleasure
• Reading

“If it ain't a pleasure, it ain't a poem.”

Poetry should arise from joy rather than obligation · Conversation / anecdote (commonly attributed)

• Joy
• Pleasure
• Poetry

“The pleasure of reading is doubled when one lives with another who reads too.”

Celebrating the companionship and shared delight that reading can bring. · Table Talk

• Companionship
• Pleasure
• Reading

“I know of no pleasure so lasting as that of having done a good turn to a fellow creature.”

Expressing the quiet satisfaction found in kindness toward others · Letter / personal paper

• Generosity
• Kindness
• Pleasure

“The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.”

Reflecting Shelley's fascination with the strange sweetness that can accompany melancholy. · Letter, 1821

• Melancholy
• Pleasure
• Sorrow

“Criticism is the attempt to define and enjoy the aesthetic or characteristic values of literature.”

He defines criticism as an act of both understanding and enjoyment rather than mere information gathering. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Criticism
• Literature
• Pleasure

“I have been a great theatre-goer.”

A plain but useful statement of his longstanding enthusiasm for the theatre. · Auto-Analysis

• Pleasure
• Theatre

“I want to be an amateur. I want to love what I’m doing, to do it for pleasure.”

A striking defence of creative work as a source of pleasure rather than merely a profession. · Conversation with Robert Penn Warren, as recalled by Warren

• Creativity
• Pleasure
• Writing

“Gold, silver, gems, purple cloth, a marble house and a well-tended field give only a mute and surface pleasure; books delight us through and through, they speak with us, they counsel us, and they join us in a living intimacy.”

Original: Aurum, argentum, gemme, purpurea vestis, marmorea domus, cultus ager... mutum et superficiale gaudium afferunt; libri delectant penitus, loquuntur, consulunt, viva quadam et arguta familiaritate se nobis inserunt. — Sets the companionship of reading against the silence of luxury. · Letter to Giovanni Anchiseo, Familiares III, 18 (Latin)

• Books
• Friendship
• Pleasure

“For every hour of pain, I have had a day of pleasure. For every moment of worry, an hour of content.”

Balancing suffering against her larger experience of pleasure and contentment · Essay, Optimism

• Contentment
• Pain
• Pleasure

“An infinite series of undefined expectations is more precious than any paltry performance or transient fruition.”

Arguing that anticipation can sometimes be richer than fulfilment · Letter to Edward Everett Hale, December 7, 1869

• Expectation
• Imagination
• Pleasure

“I am extravagantly fond of perfumes.”

An amusingly emphatic confession of a private sensory pleasure. · Auto-Analysis

• Pleasure
• Senses

“The poet, I consider, is both critic and entertainer (and his criticism will cut no ice unless he entertains).”

Poetry must hold an audience if its judgement is to matter · Preface, Modern Poetry: A Personal Essay (1938)

• Criticism
• Pleasure
• Poetry

“And for this point (good reder) thine own profit and pleasure, in these presently, and moe hereafter, shal answere for my defence.”

Letting the reader's gain stand as the printer's justification · Preface, The Printer to the Reader, Songes and Sonettes (1557)

• Pleasure
• Profit
• Readers

“Nothing could have given me greater pleasure than your note - not even your book itself.”

The pleasure of a personal letter · Letter to Leigh Hunt, 1845

• Friendship
• Letters
• Pleasure

“Abstinence from low pleasures is the only means of meriting or of obtaining the higher.”

Arguing that renunciation is the gateway to nobler satisfaction · Imaginary Conversations

• Discipline
• Pleasure
• Virtue

“What most of us don't realize is that everyone loves poetry.”

Defending poetry as a popular pleasure, not a highbrow specialty · Interview remark, reported in the Washington Post

• Pleasure
• Poetry
• Readers

“Cruelty is the highest pleasure to the cruel man; it is his love.”

Cruelty as a perverse form of love · Conversation / essay (as commonly attributed)

• Cruelty
• Love
• Pleasure

“Refrain from blaming me, for blame is a provocation, and cure me with the very thing that caused the disease.”

Original: دع عنك لومي فإن اللوم إغراء، ودوني بالتي كانت هي الداء — A famous paradoxical remark on indulgence and defiance · Divan preface and oral traditions (Arabic)

• Desire
• Pleasure
• Wit

“I know I can write better poems than I’ve ever written; I know how to write my poems. But I want to be an amateur.”

The desire to preserve freedom and pleasure in writing even when further achievement remains possible. · Conversation with Robert Penn Warren, as recalled by Warren

• Freedom
• Pleasure
• Writing

“My idea is to have it less profound than entertaining.”

A plain statement of the pleasure he meant his work to give · Letter, 1879

• Pleasure
• Poetry
• Purpose

“He has achieved every vote who has combined the useful with the agreeable, delighting the reader while instructing him.”

Original: Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utili dulci, lectorem delectando pariterque monendo. — Highlights the ideal harmony of pleasure and moral purpose in writing. · Ars Poetica (Latin)

• Pleasure
• Wisdom
• Writing

“Genuine bird-song is simply the highest form of avian vocalization, by which instinctively, if not premeditatedly, the bird finds expression of pleasure.”

Song defined as pleasure finding a voice · Essay, The Motif of Bird-Song, in Sylvan Secrets

• Animals
• Music
• Pleasure