The only test of work of literature is that it shall please other ages than its own.

Everyone alters and is altered by everyone else. We are all the time taking in portions of one another or else reacting against them, and by these involuntary acquisitions and repulsions modifying our natures.

We soon cease to feel the grief at the deaths of our friends, yet we continue to the end of our lives to miss them. They are still with us in their absence.

Words are as recalcitrant as circus animals, and the unskilled trainer can crack his whip at them in vain.

The only test of work of literature is that it shall please other ages than its own.

The more we feel sorry for ourselves, the less sorry others will feel for us. People don't waste their small store of sympathy on those who can provide it so richly for themselves.

Poets and painters are outside the class system, or rather they constitute a special class of their own, like the circus people and the Gypsies.