It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it.
The noble temptation to see too much in everything.
A small artist is content with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything.
We all feel the riddle of the earth without anyone to point it out. The mystery of life is the plainest part of it. The clouds and curtains of darkness, the confounding vapors, these are the daily weather of this world.
There is nothing harder to learn than painting and nothing which most people take less trouble about learning.
A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it.
The original quality in any man of imagination is imagery.
Romance is the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure.
Powerful men who have powerful passions use much of their strength in forging chains for themselves.
Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence.
If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue humanely, we may argue with great mutual benefit: but, obviously, we must argue.
They have invented a phrase, a phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two words – ‘free-love’ – as if a lover ever had been, or ever could be, free.
A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been a boy.
The Mass is not only about God becoming man, it is about Man becoming more himself.
Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes.
Adventure is the champagne of life, but I prefer my champagne and my adventures dry.
For the enjoyment of the artist the mask must be to some extent moulded on the face. What he makes outside him must correspond to something inside him; he can only make his effects out of some of the materials of his soul.
When you with velvets mantled o’er, Defy December’s tempests frore, Oh! spare one garment from your store, To clothe the poor at Christmas.
Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity for hall-porters.
I have investigated the dust-heaps of humanity, and found a treasure in all of them. I have found that humanity is not incidentally engaged, but eternally and systematically engaged, in throwing gold into the gutter and diamonds into the sea.