There are few enough people with sufficient independence to see the weaknesses and follies of their contemporaries and remain themselves untouched by them. And these isolated few usually soon lose their zeal for putting things to rights when they have come face to face with human obduracy. Only to a tiny minority is it given to fascinate their generation by subtle humour and grace and to hold the mirror up to it by the impersonal agency of art. To-day I salute with sincere emotion the supreme master of this method, who has delighted - and educated - us all.

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of gre…

The cult of individual personalities is always, in my view, unjustified. To be sure, nature distributes her gifts variously among her children. But there are p…

A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call…

It is true that for us art is not an end in itself, we have lost too many of our illusions for that. Art is for us an occasion for social criticism, and for re…

The imaginative artist willy-nilly influences his time. If he understands his responsibility and acts on it-taking the art seriously always, himself never quit…

Terrible times in which priests no longer merit the praise of poets and in which poets have not yet begun to be priests.