To The Modern Spirit Nothing

The Service Of Philosophy, Of Speculative Culture, Towards The Human Spirit, Is To Rouse, To Startle It To A Life Of Constant And Eager Observation.

Experience, Already Reduced To A Group Of Impressions, Is Ringed Round For Each One Of Us By That Thick Wall Of Personality Through Which No Real Voice Has Ever Pierced On Its Way To Us, Or From Us To That Which We Can Only Conjecture To Be Without.

To Burn Always With This Hard, Gemlike Flame, To Maintain This Ecstasy, Is Success In Life . . . Not The Fruit Of Experience, But Experience Itself, Is The End . . . For Art Comes To You Professing Frankly To Give Nothing But The Highest Quality To Your Moments As They Pass, And Simply For Those Moments' Sake.

All Art Does But Consist In The Removal Of Surplusage.

Books Are A Refuge, A Sort Of Cloistral Refuge, From The Vulgarities Of The Actual World.