This is the merit and distinction of art: to be more real than reality, to be not nature but nature's essence. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
“It matters not how strait the gate. How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate. I am the captain… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Life is a smoke that curls- Curls in a flickering skein, That winds and whisks and whirls, A figment thin and vain, Into the… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Into the winter's gray delight, Into the summer's golden dream, Holy and high and impartial, Death, the mother of Life, Mingles all men for… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Behold me waiting—waiting for the knife… The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform, The drunken dark, the little death-in-life… [F]ace to face with chance, I… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Madam Life's a piece in bloom Death goes dogging everywhere: she's the tenant of the room, he's the ruffian on the stair. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Shakespeare and Rembrandt have in common the faculty of quickening speculation and compelling the minds of men to combat and discussion. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Who but knows How it goes! Life's a last year's Nightingale, Love's a last year's rose. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Or ever the knightly years were gone, with the old world to the grave, I was a King in Babylon and you were a… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
And lo, the Hospital, gray, quiet, old, Where life and death like friendly chafferers meet. — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
Now, to read poetry at all is to have an ideal anthology of one's own, and in that possession to be incapable of content… — William Ernest Henley Copy Share Image
![“Behold me waiting—waiting for the knife… The thick, sweet mystery of chloroform, The drunken dark, the little death-in-life… [F]ace to face with chance, I shrink a little: My hopes are strong, my will is something weak. ...I am ready But, gentlemen my porters, life is brittle: You carry Cæsar and…” quote by William Ernest Henley](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/a68/william-ernest-henley-15193_aces_behold-me-waiting-waiting-for-the-knife_269698.jpg)
