Vernon Lee

“Sympathy is a thing which, like imagination, should be cultivated.”

“The majority of us are hideously nice. It is a sort of genius to be really nasty.”

“The Past has a life of its own; it is just as much a work of the imagination as the Future.”

“The capacity for appreciating the beautiful is a very rare and very precious gift; and if you have got it, you have no right to keep it to yourself.”

“What is the use of art? to make us feel not less but more, and more vividly.”

“A great musician is just a man who is ridiculously fond of music.”

“The beautiful is that which is desirable for its own sake.”

“The power of giving pleasure is a certain sign of the presence of beauty.”

“Beliefs are not possessions, they are states of mind, and you can be in more than one at a time.”

“There is no formula for the writing of a story, short or long.”

“Beauty is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.”