“But this is human life: the war, the deeds, The disappointment, the anxiety, Imagination’s struggles, far and nigh,All human; bearing in themselves this good, That they are still the air, the subtle food, To make us feel existence. -Keats, EndymionThis is the ‘goal’ of the soul path – to feel existence; not to overcome life’s struggles and anxieties, but to know life first hand, to exist fully in context. (Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul, p.260)”
John Keats“John Keats / John Keats / John / Please put your scarf on.”
J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction“You are always new. THe last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest. When you pass'd my window home yesterday, I was fill'd with as much admiration as if I had then seen you for the first time...Even if you did not love me I could not help an entire devotion to you.”
John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne“Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes.”
John Keats“I was too much in solitude, and consequently was obliged to be in continual burning of thought, as an only resource.”
John Keats, Letters of John Keats“I must choose between despair and Energy──I choose the latter.”
John Keats, Letters of John Keats“If I am destined to be happy with you here—how short is the longest Life—I wish to believe in immortality—I wish to live with you for ever.”
John Keats, Letters of John Keats“For axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses.”
John Keats, Letters of John Keats“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”
John Keats, Letters of John Keats“Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?---"On death”
John Keats, Complete Poems and Selected Letters“My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you – I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again – my Life seems to stop there – I see no further. You have absorb’d me. I have a sensation at the present moment as though I was dissolving – I should be exquisitely miserable without the hope of soon seeing you … I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion – I have shudder’d at it – I shudder no more – I could be martyr’d for my Religion – Love is my religion – I could die for that – I could die for you.”
John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne