Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?

Stupid — well, there are so many kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.

In books we never find anything but ourselves. Strangely enough, that always gives us great pleasure, and we say the author is a genius.

One must die to life in order to be utterly a creator.

Even in a personal sense, after all, art is an intensified life. By art one is more deeply satisfied and more rapidly used up. It engraves on the countenance of its servant the traces of imaginary and intellectual adventures, and even if he has outwardly existed in cloistral tranquility, it leads in the long term to overfastidiousness, over-refinement, nervous fatigue and overstimulation, such as can seldom result from a life of the most extravagant passions and pleasures.

He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.

All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life.