Literary criticism can be no more than a reasoned account of the feeling produced upon the critic by the book he is criticising.

When man has nothing but his will to assert--even his good-will--it is always bullying. Bolshevism is one sort of bullying, capitalism another: and liberty is a change of chains.

Truth does not lie beyond humanity, but is one of the products of the human mind and feeling.

But, especially in love, only counterfeit emotions exist nowadays. We have all been taught to mistrust everybody emotionally, from parents downwards, or upwards. Don’t trust anybody with your real emotions: if you’ve got any: that is the slogan of today. Trust them with your money, even, but never with your feelings. They are bound to trample on them.

Art is a form of supremely delicate awareness and atonement — meaning atoneness, the state of being at one with the object.

We have to hate our immediate predecessors, to get free from their authority.

She knew that the horse, born to serve nobly, had waited in vain for someone noble to serve. His spirit knew that nobility had gone out of men.