“I love literature and poetry and art and music with a passionate love. But I am equally fond of sport.”

Rejecting any division between artistic enthusiasm and physical pursuits · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Art
• Literature
• Poetry

“I have always had the utmost contempt for public opinion.”

A characteristic declaration of independence from social judgement · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Independence
• Judgement
• Society

“A man cannot help his instincts and the natural tendencies he is born with. But he can control and direct them.”

Distinguishing innate tendencies from the responsibility to govern them · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Character
• Discipline
• Instinct

“While I, necessarily, believe in free-will, I believe also in the influence of heredity.”

Balancing individual choice against inherited tendencies · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Choice
• Identity
• Thought

“Whatever I have done in life has been done in obedience to an overpowering instinct.”

Presenting instinct as a powerful force behind personal choices · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Choice
• Instinct
• Life

“It has been the passion of my life to sacrifice myself for others, to find and fight for 'lost causes' (which I never believe to be really lost).”

Describing his attraction to difficult causes and resistance to defeat · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Courage
• Perseverance
• Support

“My motto has always been 'Give, give, give.”

Expressing his ideal of generosity towards others · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Care
• Generosity

“It is astonishing how rapidly memories of that kind disappear.”

Reflecting on how quickly achievements can vanish from collective memory · The Autobiography of Lord Alfred Douglas, 1929

• Fame
• Memory
• Time

“Here am I, dying of a hundred good symptoms.”

Meeting reassuring medical reports near death with characteristic irony · Conversation with Lord Lyttelton, May 1744

• Death
• Health
• Humour

“True politeness consists in the being easy one-self, and making every body about one as easy as we can.”

Defining courtesy through ease and consideration rather than ceremony · Conversation recorded by Joseph Spence, 1739

• Character
• Kindness
• Society

“All gardening is landscape-painting.”

Treating garden design as the artistic composition of living scenery · Conversation recorded by Joseph Spence

• Art
• Beauty
• Nature

“one may look upon his works, in comparison of those that are more finish'd and regular, as upon an ancient majestick piece of Gothick Architecture compar'd with a neat Modern building.”

Using architecture to distinguish grandeur and irregularity from polished correctness · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

• Art
• Criticism
• Literature

“the better half of Criticism, namely the pointing out an Author's excellencies.”

Arguing that criticism should recognise excellence rather than merely expose faults · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

• Criticism
• Literature
• Respect

“the Philosopher and even the Man of the world may be Born, as well as the Poet.”

Suggesting that worldly insight, like poetic talent, may be innate · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

• Creativity
• Instinct
• Knowledge

“he seems to have known the world by Intuition, to have look'd thro' humane nature at one glance.”

Admiring an intuitive understanding of human nature · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

• Humanity
• Literature
• Understanding

“We are surpriz'd, the moment we weep; and yet upon reflection find the passion so just that we shou'd be surpriz'd if we had not wept.”

Describing the apparent naturalness of powerful dramatic emotion · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

• Art
• Emotion
• Literature

“every single character in Shakespeare is as much an Individual as those in Life itself; it is as impossible to find any two alike.”

Celebrating Shakespeare's ability to create distinct human personalities · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

• Humanity
• Individuality
• Literature

“His Characters are so much Nature her self that 'tis a sort of injury to call them by so distant a name as Copies of her.”

Praising the lifelike individuality of Shakespeare's characters · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

• Character
• Literature
• Nature

“The Poetry of Shakespeare was Inspiration indeed: he is not so much an Imitator as an Instrument of Nature.”

Presenting Shakespeare's creativity as an unusually direct expression of nature · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

• Creativity
• Nature
• Poetry

“If ever any Author deserved the name of an Original, it was Shakespeare.”

Praising Shakespeare's extraordinary creative independence · Preface to Shakespeare, 1725

• Creativity
• Literature
• Originality

“if any thing was good it would defend it-self, and what was bad could never be defended.”

Expressing confidence that lasting merit ultimately needs little defence · Preface to The Works of Alexander Pope, 1717

• Criticism
• Truth
• Writing

“If I have written well, let it be consider'd that 'tis what no man can do without good sense, a quality that not only renders one capable of being a good writer, but a good man.”

Connecting literary judgement with judgement in life · Preface to The Works of Alexander Pope, 1717

• Character
• Wisdom
• Writing

“I am altogether uncertain, whether to look upon my self as a man building a monument, or burying the dead?”

Wondering whether collected works preserve writing or merely entomb it · Preface to The Works of Alexander Pope, 1717

• Fame
• Mortality
• Writing

“One may be ashamed to consume half one's days in bringing sense and rhyme together.”

Wryly placing literary labour beside life's other demands · Preface to The Works of Alexander Pope, 1717

• Humour
• Time
• Writing