No More Learning

There is nothing so absolutely pathetic as a really fine paradox. The
pun is the clown among jokes, the well-turned paradox is the polished
comedian, and the highest comedy verges upon tragedy, just as the
keenest edge of tragedy is often tempered by a subtle humour. Our minds
are shot with moods as a fabric is shot with colours, and our moods
often seem inappropriate. Everything that is true is inappropriate.

The longer one studies life and literature the more strongly one feels
that behind everything that is wonderful stands the individual, and that
it is not the moment that makes the man but the man who creates the age.

To know the vintage and quality of a wine one need not drink the whole
cask.

It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts
longer than beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such
pains to over-educate ourselves.

The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit
at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory they
are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.

To have a capacity for a passion, and not to realise it is to make
oneself incomplete and limited.

Even in actual life egotism is not without its attractions. When people
talk to us about others they are usually dull. When they talk to us
about themselves they are nearly always interesting, and if one could
shut them up when they become wearisome as easily as one can shut up a
book of which one has grown wearied they would be perfect absolutely.
Every great man nowadays has his disciples and it is invariably Judas
who writes the biography.

Art finds her own perfection within, and not outside of, herself. She is
not to be judged by any external standard of resemblance. She is a veil
rather than a mirror. She has flowers that no forest knows of, birds
that no woodland possesses. She makes and unmakes many worlds, and can
draw the moon from heaven with a scarlet thread. Hers are the 'forms
more real than living man,' and hers the great archetypes, of which
things that have existence are but unfinished copies. Nature has, in her
eyes, no laws, no uniformity. She can work miracles at her will, and
when she calls monsters from the deep they come. She can bid the
almond-tree blossom in winter and send the snow upon the ripe cornfield.
At her word the frost lays its silver finger on the burning mouth of
June, and the winged lions creep out from the hollows of the Lydian
hills. The dryads peer from the thicket as she passes by, and the brown
fauns smile strangely at her when she comes near them. She has
hawk-faced gods that worship her, and the centaurs gallop at her side.

In literature mere egotism is delightful.

If we live for aims we blunt our emotions. If we live for aims we live
for one minute, for one day, for one year, instead of for every minute,
every day, every year.