“Truly, I think that a little ‘Art for Art’ has already done a great deal of good in England, and that a little more is needed, and would be equally beneficial.”

Defending the value of beauty and artistic freedom in a practical age · Letter quoted in the preface to Songs of a Worker (1881)

• Art
• Beauty

“My meaning is that Art is good—is an incalculable gain to man.”

Expressing an unusually direct faith in the value of artistic creation · Letter quoted in the Preface to Songs of a Worker, 1881

• Art
• Beauty
• Hope

“They are therefore essentially thoughts in marble, or poems of form, and it would therefore be unjustifiable to look in them for a sense which is not inherent in the purest Parian.”

Describing poetry as verbal sculpture whose meaning resides in form and beauty · Written statement quoted in the preface to Songs of a Worker (1881)

• Art
• Beauty
• Poetry