Literature nowadays is a trade... the successful man of letters is your skilful tradesman. He thinks first and foremost of the markets.

For one thing, I know every book of mine by its scent.

I am much better employed from every point of view, when I live solely for my own satisfaction, than when I begin to worry about the world. The world frightens me, and a frightened man is no good for anything.

To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity.

I hate and fear 'science' because of my conviction that, for long to come if not for ever, it will be the remorseless enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world; I see it restoring barbarism under a mask of civilization; I see it darkening men's minds and hardening their hearts.

Flippancy, the most hopeless form of intellectual vice.

To every man it is decreed: Thou shalt live alone. Happy they who imagine that they have escaped the common lot; happy, whilst they imagine it.