I was very much disappointed in the Atlantic Ocean.
Everybody in American seems in a rush to catch a train.
The first thing that struck me on landing in America was that if the Americans are not the most well-dressed people in the world, they are the most comfortably dressed.
America is the noisiest country that ever existed. One is waked up in the morning, not by the singing of the nightingale, but by the steam whistle.
In one dancing saloon I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice: ‘Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best.’
I wonder that no criminal has ever pleaded the ugliness of your city as an excuse for his crimes.
America is not a country, it is a world.
Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne.
The study of law is sublime, and its practice vulgar.
I envy you going to Oxford: it is the most flower-like time of one’s life. One sees the shadow of things in silver mirrors. Later on, one sees the Gorgon’s head, and one suffers, because it does not turn one to stone.
In a very ugly and sensible age, the arts borrow, not from life, but from each other.
How strange a thing this is! The Priest telleth me that the Soul is worth all the gold in the world, and the merchants say that it is not worth a clipped piece of silver.
The birds did not understand a single word of what he was saying, but that made no matter, for they put their heads on one side, and looked wise, which is quite as good as understanding a thing, and very much easier.
Fantastic shadows of birds.
Man is made for something better than disturbing dirt.
A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament. Its beauty comes from the fact that the author is what he is. It has nothing to do with the fact that other people want what they want.
The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature. What Art really reveals to us is Nature’s lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition.
George Moore wrote brilliant English until he discovered grammar.
Only good questions deserve good answers.
I see the moon like a clipped piece of silver. Like gilded bees the stars cluster round her.