T.E. Hulme Quotes

“Old houses were scaffolding once and workmen whistling.”

“Poverty chastity and obedience are extremely difficult. But there are always the graces if you will pray for them.”

“You must never lose the awareness that in yourself you are nothing you are only an instrument. An instrument is nothing until it is lifted.”

“Betelgeuse, Achenar. Orion. Aquila. Centre the Cross and you have a steady compass. But there's no compass for my ever disoriented soul, only ever beckoning ghost lights. In the one sure direction, to the one sure end.”

“Language is by its very nature a communal thing; that is, it expresses never the exact thing, but a compromise- that which is common to you, me, and everybody.”

“I know about me. I am the moons sister, a tidal child stranded on land. The sea always in my ear, a surf of eternal discontent in my blood.”

“The smarter you are, the more you know, the less reason you have to trust or love or confide.”

“She has this curious heavy grace, like something out of its element making do in a heavier medium. Like she should be living in water.”

“The view which regards man as a well, a reservoir full of possibilities, I call the romantic; the one which regards him as a very finite and fixed creature, I call the classical.”

“Here is the root of all romanticism: that man, the individual, is an infinite reservoir of possibilities, and if you can so rearrange society by the destruction of oppressive order, then these possibilities will have a chance, and you will get Progress.”