To know when one's self is interested, is the first condition of interesting other people. - Walter Pater

What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions.

We need some imaginative stimulus, some not impossible ideal such as may shape vague hope, and transform it into effective desire, to carry us year after year, without disgust, through the routine-work which is so large a part of life.

It is the addition of strangeness to beauty that constitutes the romantic character in art.