Tomes of aesthetic criticism hang on a few moments of real delight and intuition.

Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavour to understand him.

In endowing us with memory, nature has revealed to us a truth utterly unimaginable to the unreflective creation, the truth of immortality....The most ideal human passion is love, which is also the most absolute and animal and one of the most ephemeral.

An operation that eventually kills may be technically successful, and the man may die cured; and so a description of religion thatshowed it to be madness might first show how real and warm it was, so that if it perished, at least it would perish understood.

In any close society it is more urgent to restrain others than to be free oneself. Hence the tendency for the central authority to absorb and supersede such as are local or delegated.

Music contains a whole gamut of experience, from sensuous elements to ultimate intellectual harmonies.

Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.