for what is the gift of the poet and the artist except to see the sights which others cannot see and to hear the sounds that others cannot hear?

The world never leaves one in ignorance or in peace.

The radical defect in Christianity is that it tried to win the world by a bribe, and it has become a nullity.

A man may be a great statesman, and yet dislike his wife, and like somebody else's. A man may be a great hero, and yet he may have an unseemly passion, or an unpaid tailor. But the British public does not understand this. ... It thinks, unhappily or happily as you may choose to consider, that genius should keep the whole ten commandments. Now, genius is conspicuous for breaking them.

Emulation is active virtue; envy is brooding malice.

for what is the gift of the poet and the artist except to see the sights which others cannot see and to hear the sounds that others cannot hear?

Flowers belong to Fairyland: the flowers and the birds and the butterflies are all that the world has kept of its golden age--the only perfectly beautiful things on earth--joyous, innocent, half divine--useless, say they who are wiser than God.