People are so overwhelmed with the prestige of their instruments that they consider their personal judgement of hardly any account.

All orthodox opinion - that is, today, "revolutionary" opinion either of the pure or the impure variety - is anti-man.

Revolutionary politics, revolutionary art, and oh, the revolutionary mind, is the dullest thing on earth. When we open a revolutionary review, or read a revolutionary speech, we yawn our heads off. It is true, there is nothing else. Everything is correctly, monotonously, dishearteningly revolutionary. What a stupid word! What a stale fuss!

But let me have silence always, in the centre of the shouting—that is essential! Let me have silence so that no pin may drop and not be heard, and not a whisper escape us for all our spouting, nor the needle's scratching upon this gramophone of a circular cosmic spot. Hear me! Mark me! Learn me! Throw the mind's ear open—shut up the mind's eye—all will be music!

Art is the expression of an enormous preference.

What is the good of being an island, if you are not a volcanic island?

No American worth his salt should go looking around for a root. I advance this in all modesty, as a not unreasonable opinion.