There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it would be impossible to overestimate--not to the artist but to the public.... Without them we would judge a man simply by his work; but at present the newspapers are trying hard to induce the public to judge a sculptor, for instance, never by his statues but by the way he treats his wife; a painter by the amount of his income and a poet by the colour of his necktie.

Alone, and without any reference to his neighbours, without any interference, the artist can fashion a beautiful thing; and if he does not do it solely for his own pleasure, he is not an artist at all.

And when wind and winter harden All the loveless land, It will whisper of the garden, You will understand.

Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.

Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world.

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.

Self-denial is simply a method by which arrests his progress, and self-sacrifice a survival of the mutilation of the savage.