God Is Not All That

Cliche Refers To Words, Commonplace To Ideas. Cliche Describes The Form Or The Letter, Commonplace The Substance Or Spirit. To Confuse Them Is To Confuse The Thought With The Expression Of The Thought. The Cliche Is Immediately Perceivable; The Commonplace Very Often Escapes Notice If Decked Out In Original Dress. There Are Few Examples, In Any Literature, Of New Ideas Expressed In Original Form. The Most Critical Mind Must Often Be Content With One Or The Other Of These Pleasures, Only Too Happy When It Is Not Deprived Of Both At Once, Which Is Not Too Rarely The Case.

To Write Well, To Have Style ... Is To Paint. The Master Faculty Of Style Is Therefore The Visual Memory. If A Writer Does Not See What He Describes-countrysides And Figures, Movements And Gestures-how Could He Have A Style, That Is Originality?

Intelligence, That Sublimation Of The Sensibility, That Organ Of The Need To Know, Is Sterilized Sensibility.

Very Simple Ideas Lie Within The Reach Only Of Complex Minds.

Industry Has Operated Against The Artisan In Favor Of The Idler, And Also In Favor Of Capital And Against Labor. Any Mechanical Invention Whatsoever Has Been More Harmful To Humanity Than A Century Of War.