Quotes

The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnising my mind and causing me to forget the passing cares of life.

The world is wide, and has many marvellous people in it.

One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly; as one beholds the same objects from a higher point of view.

The world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover. It becomes small as one song, as one kiss of the eternal.

I know there are many things in Shakespeare, and in the world, that I do not understand; and I am glad to see veil after veil lift gradually, revealing new realms of thought and beauty.

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good intellects.

All in the world know the beauty of the beautiful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what ugliness is; they all know the skill of the skilful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what the want of skill is.

The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.

Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away. And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.

The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.

The very hopes of man, the thoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and morals of mankind are all at the mercy of a new generalization.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,

The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact:

Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know,

To define is to limit.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

All art is at once surface and symbol.