The first impression of a work of art is its otherness from reality.

The world of physics is essentially the real world construed by mathematical abstractions, and the world of sense is the real world construed by the abstractions which the sense-organs immediately furnish. To suppose that the "material mode" is a primitive and groping attempt at physical conception is a fatal error in epistemology.

Religion, even the most primitive and superstitious, is inevitably a beginning of culture. It is not possible without some kind of symbolic expression ... and begets dramatic gesture, dance, and chant.

Is it conceivable that mysticism is a mark of inadequate art?

common sense is a very tricky instrument; it is as deceptive as it is indispensable.

value exists only where there is consciousness. Where nothing ever is felt, nothing matters.

Music is the tonal analogue of emotive life.