Science is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon eternal truths. Art is out of the reach of morals, for her eyes are fixed upon things beautiful and immortal and ever-changing.
Modern pictures are, no doubt, delightful to look at. At least, some of them are. But they are quite impossible to live with; they are too clever, too assertive, too intellectual. Their meaning is too obvious, and their method too clearly defined. One.
Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.
Pleasure without Champagne is purely artificial.
Religion is like a blind man looking in a black room for a black cat that isn’t there, and finding it.
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself. Sometimes I am so clever I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.
When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
Now, nothing should be able to harm a man except himself. Nothing should be able to rob a man at all. What a man really has, is what is in him. What is outside of him should be a matter of no importance.
One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.
I have grown tired of the articulate utterances of men and things. The Mystical in Art, the Mystical in Life, the Mystical in Nature this is what I am looking for. It is absolutely necessary for me to find it somewhere.
Finding the meaning of life is easy. Simply get a dictionary, go to the ‘L’ section, and find the word ‘life.’
In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.
The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement.
No work of art ever puts forward views. Views belong to people who are not artists.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!
Life! Life! Don’t let us go to life for our fulfillment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed by circumstances, incoherent in its utterance, and without that fine correspondence of form and spirit which is the only thing that can satisfy the artistic.
The moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist.
Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.