“All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.”

“Those who go beneath the surface, do so at their peril.”

“Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.”

“There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either after one of those dreamless nights that make one almost enamoured of death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality itself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques, and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled with the malady of reverie.”

“It is only an auctioneer who should admire all schools of art.”

“I made art a philosophy, and philosophy an art: I altered the minds of men, and the colour of things: I awoke the imagination of my century so that it created myth and legend around me: I summed up all things in a phrase, all existence in an epigram: whatever I touched I made beautiful”

“All art is quite useless.”