Meaning of “Still, wond'rous youth! each noble path pursue, On…”

As a Man Thinketh, chapter “Visions and Ideals”; this is an excerpt from Allen’s longer exhortation to remain true to constructive ideals.

Endymion: A Poetic Romance (1818), Book I, line 1, Project Gutenberg #24280, reproducing the Taylor and Hessey 1818 text. “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever” opens the poem’s mythic Romantic meditation on beauty; the statement remains a poetic proposition rather than empirical evidence that every aesthetic experience produces permanent happiness.

Essays in the Art of Writing, “On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature”; Project Gutenberg #492. “Difficulty” here concerns literary form and craft, not a universal claim that hardship automatically makes things better.

Poem commonly titled “A Book,” later known by its opening line; first two lines of the poem.

“Andrea del Sarto,” first published in Men and Women (1855), represented by Poetry Foundation. The line is spoken by Browning’s fictionalized Renaissance painter Andrea del Sarto while reflecting on artistic perfection, ambition and limitation; it is dramatic monologue rather than Browning speaking autobiographically.

Signs of Change, lecture “Useful Work versus Useless Toil”; Project Gutenberg #3053. “Thus” refers to creative work engaging mind, memory, imagination and bodily effort.