Why should you think that beauty, which is the most precious thing in the world, lies like a stone on the beach for the careless passer-by to pick up idly? Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul. And when he has made it, it is not given to all to know it. To recognize it you must repeat the adventure of the artist. It is a melody that he sings to you, and to hear it again in your own heart you want knowledge and sensitiveness and imagination.
Each one of us is alone in the world. He is shut in a tower of brass, and can communicate with his fellows only by signs, and the signs have no common value, so that their sense is vague and uncertain. We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
Art is a manifestation of emotion, and emotion speaks a language that all may understand.
I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't.
It was such a beautiful day I decided to stay in bed.
The important thing was to love rather than to be loved.
The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
Dullness is the first requisite of a good husband.
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
We know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
She loved three things — a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man.
The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes.
It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians.
The passing moment is all we can be sure of; it is only common sense to extract its utmost value from it.
I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.
Life isn't long enough for love and art.
You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action. In France you get freedom of action: you can do what you like and nobody bothers, but you must think like everybody else. In Germany you must do what everybody else does, but you may think as you choose. They're both very good things. I personally prefer freedom of thought. But in England you get neither: you're ground down by convention. You can't think as you like and you can't act as you like. That's because it's a democratic nation. I expect America's worse.
If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.
Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.
Unconsciously, perhaps, we treasure the power we have over people by their regard for our opinion of them, and we hate those upon whom we have no such influence.
Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well
The future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
As lovers, the difference between men and women is that women can love all day long, but men only at times.
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