“Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”

Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.

Come in, dear wind, and be our guest You too have neither home nor rest.

Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods.

Who fights may lose, but who does not fight has lost already.

A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.

On thinking about Hell, I gather My brother Shelley found it was a place Much like the city of London.

Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to commonsense.

He who fights, can lose. He who doesn’t fight, has already lost.

People are too durable, that’s their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves, they last too long.

Fearful is the seductive power of goodness.

Some party hack decreed that the people had lost the government’s confidence and could only regain it with redoubled effort. If that is the case, would it not be simpler, If the government simply dissolved the people And elected another?

Mixing one’s wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.

What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?

Unfortunate the country that needs heroes!

All the gang of those who rule us Hope our quarrels never stop Helping them to split and fool us So they can remain on top.

Who built the seven gates of Thebes? In the books are listed the names of kings. Did the kings heave up the building blocks?