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He knew that the whole mystery of beauty can never be comprehended by the crowd, and that while clearness is a virtue of style, perfect explicitness is not a necessary virtue.

— Arthur Symons The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899)

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More quotes by Arthur Symons

My soul is like this cloudy, flaming opal ring.

Opals (1896)

The mystic too full of God to speak intelligibly to the world.

The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899)

Criticism is properly the rod of divination: a hazel switch for the discovery of buried treasure, not a birch twig for the castigation of offenders.

Without charm there can be no fine literature, as there can be no perfect flower without fragrance.

The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899)

Here in a little lonely room
I am master of earth and sea,
And the planets come to me.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Arthur Symons (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.