The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful. What the beautiful is is another question.
James JoyceWhy is it that words like these seem dull and cold? Is it because there is no word tender enough to be your name?
James JoyceThe romantic temper, so often and so grievously misinterpreted and not more by others than by its own, is an insecure, unsatisfied, and impatient temper which sees no fit abode here for its ideals and chooses therefore to behold them under insensible figures. As a result of this choice it comes to disregard certain limitations. Its figures are blown to wild adventures, lacking the gravity of solid bodies, and the mind that has conceived them ends by disowning them.
James Joyce