Date: November 10, 1813

"I by no means rank poetry or poets high in the scale of intellect. This may look like affectation, but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruptions prevents an earthquake."

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)

Date: 1816

"[I]n that Tale I find / The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, / Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind."

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)

Date: 1816

"But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne, / Their admiration thy best weapon shone."

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)

Date: 1816

"Conquerors and Kings, / Founders of sects and systems, to whom add / Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things / Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, / And are themselves the fools to those they fool."

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)

Date: 1818

"The Beings of the Mind are not of clay: / Essentially immortal, they create / And multiply in us a brighter ray / And more beloved existence"

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)