“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.”

Describing poetry as a renewal of perception through imaginative vision · A Defence of Poetry

• Beauty
• Nature
• Poetry

“The great secret of morals is love; or a going out of our own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own.”

Defining moral feeling as imaginative sympathy with others and with beauty · A Defence of Poetry

• Beauty
• Love
• Truth

“Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.”

Linking poetry with moments of heightened perception and human happiness · A Defence of Poetry

• Joy
• Poetry

“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”

Presenting poets as influential shapers of social and moral imagination · A Defence of Poetry

• Poetry
• Truth

“Rien n'est plus triste qu'un amour qui n'est pas partagé, sinon un amour qui l'est.”

Capturing the melancholy and vulnerability of emotional attachment · Aphorism, attributed to Paul-Jean Toulet

• Despair
• Love

“Les mots sont comme les hommes : ils ont leur pudeur.”

Suggesting that language, like human character, has limits and delicacies · Aphorism, attributed to Paul-Jean Toulet

• Poetry
• Truth

“Il n'est de grand amour qu'à l'ombre d'un grand rêve.”

Linking enduring love with the imaginative life · Aphorism, commonly attributed to Paul-Jean Toulet

• Hope
• Love

“Le bonheur est une petite chose que l'on grignote, assis par terre, au soleil.”

Presenting happiness as modest, tangible and quietly savoured · Prose aphorism, commonly attributed to Paul-Jean Toulet

• Joy
• Nature

“Il faut, avec les mots de tout le monde, écrire comme personne.”

Expressing the ideal of making original art from ordinary language · Aphorism, commonly attributed to Paul-Jean Toulet

• Art
• Poetry

“I have never been able to determine whether I am a poet who writes prose or a prose writer who writes poetry.”

Capturing his fluid movement between poetic and prose forms · Conversation, as commonly attributed

• Art
• Poetry

“The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

Capturing Wilde’s playful view of fame and the social value of notoriety · Novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray

• Fame
• Joy

“Disobedience was man's original virtue.”

Recasting dissent as a source of individuality and human progress · Essay, The Soul of Man under Socialism

• Freedom
• Truth

“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”

Questioning fixed historical narratives and the authority of inherited interpretations · Essay, The Critic as Artist

• Time
• Truth

“Art never expresses anything but itself.”

Emphasising art’s autonomy rather than its duty to reproduce ordinary life · Essay, The Critic as Artist

• Art
• Beauty

“Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.”

Presenting art as a force that shapes how people perceive and live reality · Essay, The Decay of Lying

• Art
• Truth

“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than in the one where they sprang up.”

Emphasizing the value of conversation and shared thought · Prose remark, commonly attributed to Holmes

• Friendship
• Truth

“Pretty much all the honest truth telling there is in the world is done by children.”

Suggesting that innocence can make candour possible · The Poet at the Breakfast-Table

• Childhood
• Truth

“A man's mind, stretched by new ideas, may never return to its original dimensions.”

Celebrating the lasting enlargement brought by learning · Prose remark, commonly attributed to Holmes

• Art
• Truth

“Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; you may kick it about all day, like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.”

A robust image of truth’s resilience under pressure · The Professor at the Breakfast-Table

• Truth

“The hours we pass with happy prospects in view are more pleasing than those crowded with fruition.”

Reflecting on the emotional power of anticipation compared with fulfilment · Prose work, commonly attributed to Oliver Goldsmith

• Hope
• Time

“To be instructed, one must first be willing to be instructed.”

Making receptiveness the necessary beginning of learning · Prose remark, commonly attributed to Oliver Goldsmith

• Childhood
• Truth

“Every absurdity has a champion to defend it; for error is always talkative.”

A sharp observation on the confidence with which foolish ideas are defended · Essay in The Bee

• Fame
• Truth

“People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.”

Suggesting that growth depends on humility and the example of others · The Vicar of Wakefield

• Friendship
• Truth

“Life is a journey that must be travelled no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.”

A wry acknowledgement that endurance matters more than comfortable circumstances · Prose work, commonly attributed to The Citizen of the World

• Hope
• Life