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Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.Vice and virtue are the artist’s materials for an art. From the point of view of form, th...more

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One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.

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No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpa...more

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When I think of all the harm [the Bible] has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.

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I've put my genius into my life I've only put my talent into my works.

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In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.

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Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.

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This morning I took out a comma and this afternoon I put it back again.

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No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

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Any fool can make history, but it takes a genius to write it.

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The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

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I wrote when I did not know life;now that I know life, I have no more to say.

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The ages live in history through their anachronisms.

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To be really mediæval one should have no body. To be really modern one should have no soul. To be really Greek one should have no clothes.

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It is only when one has lost all things, that one knows that one possesses it