The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

Many people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honor.

It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love.

There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People.

Temperament is the primary requisite for the critic - a temperament exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and to the various impressions that beauty gives us.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.