A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images.

A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images.

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.

I would live to study, and not study to live.

I would live to study, and not study to live.

If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no read more

If a poet has any obligation toward society, it is to write well. Being in the minority, he has no other choice. Failing this duty, he sinks into oblivion. Society, on the other hand, has no obligation toward the poet. A majority by definition, society thinks of itself as having other options than reading verses, no matter how well written. Its failure to do so results in its sinking to that level of locution at which society falls easy prey to a demagogue or a tyrant. This is society's own equivalent of oblivion.

People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with bad.

People do not deserve to have good writings; they are so pleased with bad.

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the read more

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.

You, the Spirit of the Settlement! ... Not understand that America is God's crucible, the great melting-pot where all the read more

You, the Spirit of the Settlement! ... Not understand that America is God's crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here, you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries... - Melting Pot, The.

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.

A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.

There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.