Quote collection
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"Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust upon the weak. That was all."
"When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself."
"Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about."
"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy."
"In the old times men carried out their rights for themselves as they lived, but nowadays every baby seems born with a social manifesto in its mouth much bigger than itself."
"The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim."
"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling."
"I like looking at geniuses and listening to beautiful people."
"The final mystery is oneself."
"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."
"Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves."
"He is really not so ugly after all, provided, of course, that one shuts one's eyes, and does not look at him."
"It is in the brain that the poppy is red, that the apple is odorous, that the skylark sings."
"I would not a bit mind sleeping in the cool grass in summer, and when winter came on sheltering myself by the warm close-thatched rick, or under the penthouse of a great barn, provided I had love in my heart."
"Lawyers have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent."
"Civilization is not by means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt."
"You like every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one."
"One should always be a little improbable."
"They get up early, because they have so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to think about."
"Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art."