What matters most is not the idea, but the capacity to believe in it completely.

But the one thing you should. not do is to suppose that when something is wrong with the arts, it is wrong with the arts ONLY.

The artist is always beginning.

The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth.

Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.

What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage Whose world, or mine or theirs or is it of none? First came the seen, then thus the palpable Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell. What thou lovest well is thy true heritage.

Gloom and solemnity are entirely out of place in even the most rigorous study of an art originally intended to make glad the heart of man.