No More Learning

Art begins with abstract decoration, with purely imaginative and
pleasureable work dealing with what is unreal and non-existent. This is
the first stage. Then life becomes fascinated with this new wonder, and
asks to be admitted into the charmed circle. Art takes life as part of
her rough material, recreates it and refashions it in fresh form; is
absolutely indifferent to facts; invents, imagines, dreams, and keeps
between herself and reality the impenetrable barrier of beautiful style,
of decorative or ideal treatment. The third stage is when Life gets the
upper hand and drives Art out into the wilderness. This is the true
decadence, and it is from this that we are now suffering.

Good intentions have been the ruin of the world. The only people who
have achieved anything have been those who have had no intentions at
all.

I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere
with what charming people do.

You know I am not a champion of marriage. The real drawback to
marriage is that it makes one unselfish, and unselfish people are
colourless--they lack individuality. Still there are certain
temperaments that marriage makes more complex. They retain their
egotism, and add to it many other egos. They are forced to have more
than one life. They become more highly organised, and to be highly
organised is, I should fancy, the object of man's existence.
Besides,
every experience is of value, and whatever one may say against marriage
it is certainly an experience.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

I never talk during music--at least not during good music. If anyone
hears bad music it is one's duty to drown it in conversation.

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

Faith is the most plural thing I know. We are all supposed to believe in
the same thing in different ways. It is like eating out of the same dish
with different coloured spoons.

Experience is of no ethical value. It is merely the name men give to
their mistakes. Moralists have, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of
warning, have claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation
of character, have praised it as something that teaches us what to
follow and shows us what to avoid. But there is no motive power in
experience. It is as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All
that it really demonstrates is that our future will be the same as our
past and that the sin we have done once, and with loathing, we shall do
many times, and with joy.

Sensations are the details that build up the stories of our lives.

No artist has ethical sympathies.