William Shakespeare on Imagination
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“The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact.”
“The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.”
“And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.”
“Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st: Suppose the singing birds musicians; The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strew'd; The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more Than a delightful measure or a dance.”
“This is a gift that I have, simple, simple; a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms, figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions; these are begot in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon the mellowing of occasion.”