People are usually made Dames for virtues I do not possess. Edith Sitwell More Quotes by Edith Sitwell More Quotes From Edith Sitwell I have taken this step because I want the discipline, the fire and the authority of the Church. I am hopelessly unworthy of it, but I hope to become worthy. Edith Sitwell discipline taken fire One's own surroundings means so much to one, when one is feeling miserable. Edith Sitwell miserable feelings mean The public will believe anything, so long as it is not founded on truth. Edith Sitwell media-control truth believe the arts are life accelerated and concentrated. Edith Sitwell art The poet is the complete lover of mankind. Edith Sitwell mankind poet lovers I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent. Edith Sitwell women piano government I'm dying, but otherwise I'm in very good health. Edith Sitwell good-health very-good dying I have never, in all my life, been so odious as to regard myself as 'superior' to any living being, human or animal. I just walked alone - as I have always walked alone. Edith Sitwell being-human humans animal Eccentricity is not, as some would believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd. Edith Sitwell pride men believe ... all ugliness passes, and beauty endures, excepting of the skin. Edith Sitwell ugliness endure skins But I saw the little-Ant men as they ran Edith Sitwell evil heart men A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed keeping rabbits. Edith Sitwell sarcastic reading writing Good taste is the worst vice ever invented. Edith Sitwell fashion vices taste I am one of those unhappy persons who inspire bores to the greatest flights of art. Edith Sitwell women inspiration art The busy chatter of the heat Shrilled like a parakeet; And shuddering at the noonday light The dust lay dead and white As powder on a mummy's face, Or fawned with simian grace Round booths with many a hard bright toy And wooden brittle joy: The cap and bells of Time the Clown That, jangling, whistled down Young cherubs hidden in the guise Of every bird that flies; And star-bright masks for youth to wear, Lest any dream that fare Bright pilgrim past our ken, should see Hints of Reality. Edith Sitwell stars dream past Your soul: pure glucose edged with hints Edith Sitwell glucose hints soul Said the Sun to the Moon-'When you are but a lonely white crone, And I, a dead King in my golden armour somewhere in a dark wood, Remember only this of our hopeless love That never till Time is done Will the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one Edith Sitwell lonely kings heart Isn't it curious how one has only to open a book of verse to realise immediately that it was written by a very fine poet, or else that it was written by someone who is not a poet at all. In the case of the former, the lines, the images, though they are inherent in each other, leap up and give one this shock of delight. In the case of the latter, they lie flat on the page, never having lived. Edith Sitwell giving book lying it is as unseeing to ask what is the use of poetry as it would be to ask what is the use of religion. Edith Sitwell poetry use would-be By the time I was eleven years old, I had been taught that nature, far from abhorring a Vacuum, positively adores it. Edith Sitwell vacuums nature years
