An artist has every right - one may even say a duty - to exhibit his productions as prominently as he can.

I have always been - I think any student of history almost inevitably is - a cheerful pessimist.

Above all, the ability to feel the force of an argument apart from the substance it deals with is the strongest weapon against prejudice.

[T]hat is the triumph of history - truth absolute is not at hand; the original with which to match the copy does not exist.

Machines are admirable and tyrannize only with the user's consent. Where, then, is the enemy? Not where the machine gives relief from drudgery but where human judgment abdicates. The smoothest machine-made product of the age is the organization man, for even the best organizing principle tends to corrupt, and the mechanical principle corrupts absolutely.

no subject of study is more important than reading…all other intellectual powers depend on it.

Art distills sensation and embodies it with enhanced meaning in a memorable form - or else it is not art.