There Is Only One Way To Degrade

Literature Is Not A Subject Of Study, But An Object Of Study.

It Is Of The Essence Of Imaginative Culture That It Transcends The Limits Both Of The Naturally Possible And Of The Morally Acceptable.

The Pursuit Of Beauty Is Much More Dangerous Nonsense Than The Pursuit Of Truth Or Goodness, Because It Affords A Stronger Temptation To The Ego.

A Public That Tries To Do Without Criticism, And Asserts That It Knows What It Wants Or Likes, Brutalizes The Arts And Loses Its Cultural Memory. Art For Art's Sake Is A Retreat From Criticism Which Ends In An Impoverishment Of Civilized Life Itself.

Culture's Essential Service To A Religion Is To Destroy Intellectual Idolatry, The Recurrent Tendency In Religion To Replace The Object Of Its Worship With Its Present Understanding And Forms Of Approach To That Object.