Art

It requires more than mere genius to be an author

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking

A mediocre mind thinks it writes divinely; a good mind thinks it writes reasonably

Making books is a skilled trade, like making clocks

It is the glory and merit of some men to write well, and of others not to write at all

When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and courageous feelings, seek for no other rule to judge the event by; it is good and made by a good workman

“Literature - the expression of a nation's mind in writing

An artist's flair is sometimes worth a scientist's brains

A book ought to be the ax to break the frozen sea within us

There is nothing new in art except talent

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author

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

An artist will betray himself by some sort of sincerity

As fire kindled by fire, so is the poet's mind kindled by contact with a brother poet.

I am fit for nothing but literature

The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate

Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance

If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject