The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.

A real writer can be recognized by the fact he doesn't find words. Therefore he must search for them and while doing that, he finds better ones.

Whatever we succeed in doing is a transformation of something we have failed to do. Thus, when we fail, it is only because we have given up.

History is the science of what never happens twice.

What is simple is false and what is not is useless.

Power without abuse loses its charm.

...in song the words tend to lose their significance, do often lose it, while at the other extreme, in current prose it is the musical value that tends to disappear - so that verse stands symmetrically, as it were, between song, on the one hand, and prose on the other - and is thus admirably and delicately balanced between the sensual and the intellectual power of language.