Date: May 26, 1816

"The impression slides off from the eye, and does not, like the tones of Titian's pencil, leave a sting behind it in the mind of the spectator."

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: August 1817

"Poetry is the music of language, expressing the music of the mind."

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: August 1817

"Whenever any object takes such a hold on the mind as to make us dwell upon it, and brood over it, melting the heart in love, or kindling it to a sentiment of admiration;--whenever a movement of imagination or passion is impressed on the mind, by which it seeks to prolong and repeat the emotion, ...

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: August 1817

"The musical in sound is the sustained and continuous; the musical in thought and feeling is the sustained and continuous also."

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: August 1817

"There is no natural harmony in the ordinary combinations of significant sounds: the language of prose is not the language of music, or of passion: and it is to supply this inherent defect in the mechanism of language--to make the sound an echo to the sense, when the sense becomes a sort of echo ...

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: 1818

"But poetry makes these odds all even. It is the music of language, answering to the music of the mind, untying as it were 'the secret soul of harmony.'"

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: 1818

"It is strictly the language of the imagination; and the imagination is that faculty which represents objects, not as they are in themselves, but as they are moulded by other thoughts and feelings, into an infinite variety of shapes and combinations of power."

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: 1818

"This language is not the less true to nature, because it is false in point of fact; but so much the more true and natural, if it conveys the impression which the object under the influence of passion makes on the mind."

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: 1819

"He who saves me from this conclusion, who makes a mock of this doctrine, and sets at nought its power, is to me not less than the God of my idolatry, for he has left one drop of comfort in my soul."

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: 1819

"The plague-spot has not tainted me quite; I am not leprous all over, the lie of Legitimacy does not fix its mortal sting in my inmost soul, nor, like an ugly spider, entangle me in its slimy folds; but is kept off from me, and broods on its own poison."

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)