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Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's reaso...more

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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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No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

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For what is truth? In matters of religion, it is simply the opinion that has survived. In matters of science, it is the ultimate sensation. In matters...more

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There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.The nineteenth century dislike of realism ...more

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

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There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said...more

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Spontaneity is a meticulously prepared art

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No better way is there to learn to love Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. And, the boy who sees the thing of beau...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