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Vulgarity is, in reality, nothing but a modern, chic, pert descendant of the goddess Dullness.

Edith Sitwell

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Edith Sitwell
Age: 77 †
Born: 1887
Born: September 7
Died: 1964
Died: December 9
Biographer
Essayist
Literary Critic
Poet
Writer
Scarborough
North Yorkshire
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell
Edith Louisa Sitwell
Dame Edith Sitwell
Miss Edith
God
Modern
Pert
Reality
Descendant
Nothing
Dullness
Chic
Vulgarity
Descendants
Goddess

More quotes by Edith Sitwell

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I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty... but I am too busy thinking about myself.
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What is the special privilege of youth? It is, I think, the power of looking forward, the firm belief that the future holds something that is worth possessing, and that, therefore, one can let the present moment drop from one without regret and without fear.
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By 'happiness' I do not mean worldly success or outside approval, though it would be priggish to deny that both these things are most agreeable. I mean the inner consciousness, the inner conviction that one is doing well the thing that one is best fitted to do by nature.
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I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.
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Poetry ennobles the heart and the eyes, and unveils the meaning of all things upon which the heart and the eyes dwell. It discovers the secret rays of the universe, and restores to us forgotten paradises.
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What an artist is for is to tell us what we see but do not know that we see.
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The reason why Matthew Arnold, to my feeling, fails entirely as a poet (though no doubt his ideas were good - at least, I am told they were) is that he had no sense of touch whatsoever. Nothing made any impression on his skin. He could feel neither the shape nor the texture of a poem with his hands.
Edith Sitwell
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The last faint spark In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark, The wounds of the baited bear,-- The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat On his helpless flesh . . . the tears of the hunted hare.
Edith Sitwell
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The poet is the complete lover of mankind.
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The aim of flattery is to soothe and encourage us by assuring us of the truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.
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All great poetry is dipped in the dyes of the heart.
Edith Sitwell
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There is no truth. Only points of view.
Edith Sitwell
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Our hearts seemed safe in our breasts and sang to the Light The marrow in the bone We dreamed was safe. . . the blood in the veins, the sap in the tree Were springs of Deity.
Edith Sitwell
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I'm dying, but otherwise I'm in very good health.
Edith Sitwell
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The living blind and seeing Dead together lie As if in love . . . There was no more hating then, And no more love Gone is the heart of Man.
Edith Sitwell
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If certain critics and poetasters had their way, 'Ordinary Piety' and its child, Dullness, would be the masters of poetry.
Edith Sitwell
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Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.
Edith Sitwell
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I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.
Edith Sitwell
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I am one of those unhappy persons who inspire bores to the greatest flights of art.
Edith Sitwell
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My temper is not spoilt. I am absolutely non-homicidal. Nor do I ever attack unless I have been attacked first, and then Heaven have mercy upon the attacker, because I don't! I just sharpen my wits on a wooden head as a cat sharpens its claws on the wood legs of a table.
Edith Sitwell