“If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.”

Don’t be blinded by the theorists and a lying press.

Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable work.

Speak against unconscious oppression, Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative, Speak against bonds.

Literature does not exist in a vacuum. Writers as such have a definite social function exactly proportional to their ability as writers. This is their main use.

Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one, and the man of talent sees two or three, plus the ability to register that multiple perception in the material of his art.

Bureaucrats are a pox. They are supposed to be necessary. Certain chemicals in the body are supposed to be necessary to life, but cause death the moment they increase beyond a suitable limit.

A great age of literature is perhaps always a great age of translations.

The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.

All great art is born of the metropolis.

Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry.

A little light, like a rushlight to lead back to splendour.

The secret of popular writing is never to put more on a given page than the common reader can lap off it with no strain whatsoever on his habitually slack attention.

A people that grows accustomed to sloppy writing is a people in the process of losing grip on its empire and on itself.

The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.

This is no book. Whoever touches this touches a man.

Religion I have defined as “Another of those numerous failures resulting from an attempt to popularize art”.

True will is quiet humility, resilience, and flexibility; the other kind of will is weakness disguised by bluster and ambition.

Whatever you’re thinking about, you will attract.

There is a tricycle in man. He knows, he feels and acts. He has emotion, intellect and will. He must develop head, heart and hand.

Conquer your thoughts and you will conquer the world.

There is an ability to move and transform things. I think each human being has that power, and it’s often one that we are willing to relinquish to others.

Quite often very talented people FAIL because they believe they are too big to do the little things, while the most successful amongst us are quite willing to do the little things. They truly are BIG people.

If we are willing to act violently in pursuit of a peripheral interest, everyone can be certain that, when a vital interest is at stake, we will be still more violent.

Easy to read, yet filled with wisdom that will penetrate your heart, this book puts the power back in your hands. It’s a must have.