It needs a great nature to bear the weight of a great gratitude.

Talent wears well, genius wears itself out; talent drives a snug brougham in fact; genius, a sun-chariot in fancy.

Genius cannot escape the taint of its time more than a child the influence of its begetting.

If all feeling for grace and beauty were not extinguished in the mass of mankind at the actual moment, such a method of locomotion as cycling could never have found acceptance; no man or woman with the slightest aesthetic sense could assume the ludicrous position necessary for it.

It is the north wind that lashes men into Vikings; it is the soft, luscious south wind which lulls them to lotus dreams.

Fame nowadays is little else but notoriety.

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