Others

Shame on all eloquence which leaves us with a taste for itself and not for its substance.

Eloquence lies as much in the tone of the voice, in the eyes, and in the speaker’s manner, as in his choice of words.

Eloquence is feeling pouring itself to other minds, courting their sympathy.

Eloquence may set fire to reason.

Eloquence, when at its highest pitch, leaves little room for reason or reflection; but addressing itself entirely to the fancy or the affections, captivates the willing hearers, and subdues their understanding.

Eloquence is the power to translate a truth into language perfectly intelligible to the person to whom you speak.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to an human soul.

Dreams are the true interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them.

The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens to that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was conscious ego.

Dreams nourish the soul just as food nourishes the body.

Modest doubt is call’d the beacon of the wise.

No great discovery was ever made in science except by one who lifted his nose above the grindstone of details and ventured on a more comprehensive vision.

I know perfectly well the cynic is a coward. He foresees all barrenness so that barrenness can never surprise him.

A man is a critic when he cannot be an artist, in the same way that a man becomes an informer when he cannot be a soldier.

Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-puller, but guiding, instructive, inspiring, a south wind, not an east wind.

Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.

It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.

Creative minds are uneven, and the best of fabrics have their dull spots.

The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man’s observation, not overturning it.

This was really a compliment to be pleased with— a nice little handsome pat of butter made up by a neat-handed . . . dairy-maid instead of the grease fit only for cartwheels which one is dosed with by the pound.

A compliment is something like a kiss through a veil.

Committees are consumers and sometimes sterilizers of ideas, rarely creators of them.

Childhood is the world of miracle and wonder; as if creation rose, bathed in light out of the darkness, utterly new and fresh and astonishing. The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us.

Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.