"Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom . . . at 12. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine forest which divide Ravenna from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning. I don't suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. " - After a visit in 1821
"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind."
"A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. "
"Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds. "
"Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. "
"Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted. "
