On the whole, the great success of marriage in the States is due partly to the fact that no American man is ever idle, and partly to the fact that no American wife is considered responsible for the quality of her husband’s dinners.
They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one’s face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.
Newspapers have degenerated. They may now be absolutely relied upon.
For an artist to marry his model is as fatal as for a gourmet to marry his cook: the one gets no sittings, and the other gets no dinners.
If a man needs an elaborate tombstone in order to remain in the memory of his country, it is clear that his living at all was an act of absolute superfluity.
The sign of a Philistine age is the cry of immorality against art.
Only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever succeed there.
He thinks like a Tory, and talks like a Radical, and that’s so important nowadays.
Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last.
What between the duties expected of one during one’s lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one’s death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up. That’s all that can be said about land.
Yes, I am a thorough republican. No other form of government is so favorable to the growth of art.
Lots of people act well, but few people talk well. This shows that talking is the more difficult of the two.
Vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people.
The morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.
If art is to have a special train, the critic must keep some seats reserved on it.
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.
A beggar hates his benefactor as much as he hates himself for begging.
Artists reproduce themselves or each other, with wearisome iteration. But criticism is always moving on, and the critic is always developing.
Action is limited and relative. Unlimited and absolute is the vision of him who sits at ease and watches, who walks in loneliness and dreams.
Children have a natural antipathy to books- handicraft should be the basis of education. Boys and girls should be taught to use their hands to make something, and they would be less apt to destroy and be mischievous.