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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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The pure and simple truth is, the truth is never pure and simple.

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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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I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous.

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[Letter to William Ward, 11 July 1878]Dear Boy, Why don’t you write to me? I don’t know what has become of you.As for me I am ruined. The law suit is ...more

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She...can talk brillantly upon any subject provided she knows nothing about it.

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And how delightful other people's emotions were!-much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him. One's own soul, and the passions of one's fr...more

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Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful th...more

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Art, even the art of fullest scope and widest vision, can never really show us the external world. All that it shows us is our own soul, the one world...more

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Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

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Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.

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I'm a man of simple tastes. I'm always satisfied with the best.

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She lives the poetry she cannot write.

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A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

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Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that