The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.

The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it’s dead for you.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

Woman begins by resisting a man’s advances and ends by blocking his retreat.

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.

I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged.

No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force.

Let us have no machine-made ornament at all; it is all bad and worthless and ugly.

The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.