The Good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue.... Moreover this activity ...must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Modern photographers can reduce bones to formlessness, and change a face of the most strange, exquisite and unfathomable beauty in...to the face of a clubwoman.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Caracal lies on a shelf in its den in the Zoological Gardens quietly licking its fur. I go up and stand near it. It makes a fa...ce at me. I come a little nearer, it makes a worse face and raises itself up on its haunches. I stand and look. It jumps down from its shelf and makes as if it intended "going for" me. I move back; the Caracal has exerted a moral influence over me which I have been unable to resist. Moral influence means persuading another that one can make that other more uncomfortable than that other can make oneself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In its use of words poetry is just the reverse of science. Very definite thoughts do occur, but not because the words are so chose...n as logically to bar out all possibilities save one. No. But because the manner, the tone of voice, the cadence and rhythm play upon our interests and make them pick out from among an indefinite number of possibilities the precise particular thought which they need. That is why poetical descriptions often seem so much more accurate than prose descriptions. Language logically and scientifically used cannot describe a landscape or a face. To do so would need a prodigious apparatus of names for shades and nuances, for precise particular qualities. These names do not exist, so other means have to be used.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? In...side? Behind? And the rest? Doesn't everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I cannot accept the doctrine that in poetry there is a "suspension of belief." A poet must never make a statement simply because i...t is sounds poetically exciting; he must also believe it to be true.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »