With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence: they must not — they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind.
Bio: Akiva ben Joseph, widely known as Rabbi Akiva, was a tanna of the latter part of the 1st century and the beginning of the 2nd century. Rabbi Akiva was a leading contributor to the Mishnah and Midrash Halakha.
