11 quotes
I will admit that an artist may be great and limited; by one word he may light up an abyss of soul; but there must be this one magical and unique word.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)
It does not matter how badly you paint so long as you don't paint badly like other people.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)
But if you want to be a painter you must go to France — France is the only school of Art.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)
Humanity is a pigsty, where lions, hypocrites, and the obscene in spirit congregate.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)
Ugliness is trivial, the monstrous is terrible.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)
The world is dying of machinery; that is the great disease, that is the plague that will sweep away and destroy civilization; man will have to rise against it sooner or later.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)
Terrible is the day when each sees his soul naked, stripped of all veil; that dear soul which he cannot change or discard, and which is so irreparably his.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)
We all want notoriety; our desires on this point, as upon others, are not noble, but the human is very despicable vermin and only tolerable when it tends to the brute, and away from the evangelical.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)
Injustice we worship; all that lifts us out of the miseries of life is the sublime fruit of injustice. Every immortal deed was an act of fearful injustice; the world of grandeur, of triumph, of courage, of lofty aspiration, was built up on injustice. Man would not be man but for injustice.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)
Never could I interest myself in a book if it were not the exact diet my mind required at the time, or in the very immediate future. The mind asked, received, and digested. So much was assimilated, so much expelled; then, after a season, similar demands were made, the same processes were repeated out of sight, below consciousness, as is the case in a well-ordered stomach.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)
It is said that young men of genius come to London with great poems and dramas in their pockets and find every door closed against them. Chatterton's death perpetuated this legend. But when I, George Moore, came to London in search of literary adventure, I found a ready welcome. Possibly I should not have been accorded any welcome had I been anything but an ordinary person.
Confessions of a Young Man (1886)