I only wish the poets would say this too: love is of the body; not the body, but of the the body. Ah! the misery that would be saved if we confessed that! Ah! for a little directness to liberate the soul!

One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood.

Solidity, caution, integrity, efficiency. Lack of imagination, hypocrisy. These qualities characterize the middle classes in everycountry, but in England they are national characteristics.

Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work.

It was pleasant to wake up in Florence, to open the eyes upon a bright bare room, with a floor of red tiles which look clean though they are not; with a painted ceiling whereon pink griffins and blue amorini sport in a forest of yellow violins and bassoons. It was pleasant, too, to fling wide the windows, pinching the fingers in unfamiliar fastenings, to lean out into sunshine with beautiful hills and trees and marble churches opposite, and, close below, Arno, gurgling against the embankment of the road.

So, two cheers for Democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticism.

Works of art, in my opinion, are the only objects in the material universe to possess internal order, and that is why, though I don't believe that only art matters, I do believe in Art for Art's sake.