Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress.

If you feel yourself to be above the mass, speak so as to raise the mass to the height of your argument.

Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.

Science is the systematic classification of experience.

Philosophy and Art both render the invisible visible by imagination.

As all Art depends on Vision, so the different kinds of Art depend on the different ways in which minds look at things.

Language, after all, is only the use of symbols, and Art also can only affect us through symbols.

The delusions of self-love cannot be prevented, but intellectual misconceptions as to the means of achieving success may be corrected.

All good Literature rests primarily on insight.

All bad Literature rests upon imperfect insight, or upon imitation, which may be defined as seeing at second-hand.

The superiority of one mind over another depends on the rapidity with which experiences are thus organised.

Literature delivers tidings of the world within and the world without.

Insincerity is always weakness; sincerity even in error is strength.

Science is not addressed to poets.

Imagination is not the exclusive appanage of artists, but belongs in varying degrees to all men.

No man was ever eloquent by trying to be eloquent, but only by being so.

In all sincere speech there is power, not necessarily great power, but as much as the speaker is capable of.

Personal experience is the basis of all real Literature.

Books have become our dearest companions, yielding exquisite delights and inspiring lofty aims.

We must never assume that which is incapable of proof.

Insight is the first condition of Art.

The true function of philosophy is to educate us in the principles of reasoning and not to put an end to further reasoning by the introduction of fixed conclusions.

Genius is rarely able to give any account of its own processes.

In complex trains of thought signs are indispensable.

Speak for yourself and from yourself, or be silent.

Sincerity is not only effective and honourable, it is also much less difficult than is commonly supposed.

Good writers are of necessity rare.

Murder, like talent, seems occasionally to run in families.

The only cure for grief is action.

Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity, not antagonism.

Endeavour to be faithful, and if there is any beauty in your thought, your style will be beautiful; if there is any real emotion to express, the expression will be moving.

Ordinary men live among marvels and feel no wonder, grow familiar with objects and learn nothing new about them.

Sincerity is moral truth.

Books minister to our knowledge, to our guidance, and to our delight, by their truth, their uprightness, and their art.

When a man fails to see the truth of certain generally accepted views, there is no law compelling him to provoke animosity by announcing his dissent.

A man may be variously accomplished, and yet be a feeble poet.

The public can only be really moved by what is genuine.

All great authors are seers.

It is unhappily true that much insincere Literature and Art, executed solely with a view to effect, does succeed by deceiving the public.

Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress.

The object of Literature is to instruct, to animate, or to amuse.

The air is crowded with birds – beautiful, tender, intelligent birds – to whom life is a song.

No one ever made a great discovery without the exercise of the imagination.

The magic of the pen lies in the concentration of your thoughts upon one object.

The prophet must be his own disciple, or he will make none. Enthusiasm is contagious: belief creates belief.

Remember that every drop of rain that falls bears into the bosom of the earth a quality of beautiful fertility.

Vehemence without feeling is but rant.

Nor should we exclude the possibility that Islamic terrorism may begin to make common cause with Western political extremists of the far Left and far Right.

We used to think that revolutions are the cause of change. Actually it is the other way around: change prepares the ground for revolution.