G. K. Chesterton on art

‘My country, right or wrong’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober’.

The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.

The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.

If music be the food of love, play on.

William Shakespeare1564–1616Twelfth Night (1601), Act I, scene i.In context

• Love
• Music

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Robert Frost1874–1963

• Poetry

Music makes one feel so romantic⁠—at least it always gets on one’s nerves⁠—which is the same thing nowadays.

Oscar Wilde1854–1900

• Love
• Music