Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 42.
1840s, Past and Present (1843)
“Reform the world within thyself, which is thy proper world.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 199
"To Shakespeare"
Poems (1851)
Context: The soul of man is larger than the sky,
Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathomed center. Like that ark,
Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,
O'er the drowned hills, the human family,
And stock reserved of every living kind,
So, in the compass of the single mind,
The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
That make all worlds. Great poet, 'twas thy art
To know thyself, and in thyself to be
Whate'er Love, Hate, Ambition, Destiny,
Or the firm, fatal purpose of the Heart
Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same,
Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.
Thoughts and Glimpses (1916-17)
“Wouldst thou bestow some precious gift upon thy fellows, make thyself a noble man.”
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 263
Act I, scene i.
Manfred (1817)
The Books in My Life (1952) Preface (2nd edition. New York: New Directions Publishing, 1969, p. 12)
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), X : Religion, the Mythology of the Beyond and the Apocatastasis
