For a desert island, one would choose a good dictionary rather than the greatest literary masterpiece imaginable, for, in relation to its readers, a dictionary is absolutely passive and may legitimately be read in an infinite number of ways.
Base words are uttered only by the base And can for such at once be understood; But noble platitudes – ah, there’s a case Where the most careful scrutiny is needed To tell a voice that’s genuinely good From one that’s base but merely has succeeded.
The basic stimulus to the intelligence is doubt, a feeling that the meaning of an experience is not self-evident.
Without art, we should have no notion of the sacred; without science, we should always worship false gods.
Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they won’t believe again in their own size.
O let not Time deceive you, You cannot conquer Time.
To ask the hard question is simple.
Cats can be very funny, and have the oddest ways of showing they’re glad to see you...
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself...
God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He loves us, we are repelled; it seems so cold, indeed, not love at all as we understand the word.
No being can make another one happy.
Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.
Precisely because we do not communicate by singing, a song can be out of place but not out of character; it is just as credible that a stupid person should sing beautifully as that a clever person should do so.
A small grove massacred to the last ash, An oak with heart-rot, give away the show: This great society is going to smash; They cannot fool us with how fast they go, How much they cost each other and the gods. A culture is no better than its woods.
Our sufferings and weaknesses, in so far as they are personal, are of no literary interest whatsoever. They are only interesting in so far as we can see them as typical of the human condition.
All that we are not stares back at what we are.
Criticism should be a casual conversation.
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.
Get up very early and get going at once. In fact, work first and wash afterwards.
Narcissus does not fall in love with his reflection because it is beautiful, but because it is his. If it were his beauty that enthralled him, he would be set free in a few years by its fading.
Who on earth invented the silly convention that it is boring or impolite to talk shop? Nothing is more interesting to listen to, especially if the shop is not one’s own.