Every art is a church without communicants, presided over by a parish of the respectable. An artist is born kneeling; he fights to stand. A critic, by nature of the judgment seat, is born sitting.

Sociology, the guilty science, functions best by alarm.

How clerks love refusing. It salves them for being clerks.

I always say that one's poetry is a solace to oneself and a nuisance to one's friends.

Diplomacy is what is practiced after-the-fact. Never be too right too soon -- as any smart Uncle will tell you. The man who guesses what will happen will be blamed for it. No one will believe he has merely guessed.

I don't suppose there's really any critic except posterity.

The standard dreaming of a society has to be listened to.