I see thou art implacable, more deaf
To pray'rs than winds and seas. Yet winds to seas
Are reconcil'd at length, and sea to shore:
Thy anger, unappeasable, still rages
Eternal tempest never to be calm'd.
I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal. The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth.
The well-nurtured youth is one who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he became a man of gentle heart.
The way to happiness is: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, give much. Fill your life with love. Do as you would be done by.
It is a curious fact about British Islanders, who hate drill and have not been invaded for nearly a thousand years, that as danger comes nearer and grows they become progressively less nervous; when it is imminent the are fierce, when it is mortal they are fearless.
I have a life and do a lot of things, and so far my work has been my life. If I was a painter no one would question me about my age. I'm an artist, I hate saying that.