Others

Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic.

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.

I’D RATHER BE HISSED AT FOR A GOOD VERSE, THAN APPLAUDED FOR A BAD ONE.

THE AFTERNOON KNOWS WHAT THE MORNING NEVER SUSPECTED.

I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book.

SOME EDITORS ARE FAILED WRITERS, BUT SO ARE MOST WRITERS.

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

AS A SLEUTH YOU ARE POOR. YOU COULDN’T DETECT A BASS-DRUM IN A TELEPHONE-BOOTH.

He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished.

THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF DISLIKING POETRY, ONE WAY IS TO DISLIKE IT, THE OTHER IS TO READ POPE.

The work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE ENEMY OF ALL ART, BE IT ACTING, WRITING, PAINTING, OR LIVING ITSELF, WHICH IS THE GREATEST ART OF ALL.

Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.

Treat a work of art like a prince. Let it speak to you first.

THERE IS ONLY ONE POSITION FOR AN ARTIST ANYWHERE: AND THAT IS, UPRIGHT.

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

THE HISTORY OF ART IS THE HISTORY OF REVIVALS.

Good painters imitate nature, bad ones spew it up.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.

I DOUBT THAT ART NEEDED RUSKIN ANY MORE THAN A MOVING TRAIN NEEDS ONE OF ITS PASSENGERS TO SHOVE IT.

I DOUBT THAT ART NEEDED RUSKIN ANY MORE THAN A MOVING TRAIN NEEDS ONE OF ITS PASSENGERS TO SHOVE IT.

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.