But the bravest man among us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives.

(via grotesquery)

The artistic life is a long, lovely suicide.

(via calantheandthenightingale)

Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play… I tell you, that it is on things like these that our lives depend.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection; through art and art only that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence.

theronweasleygeneration:

+ Commonly banned books throughout History

The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.
-Oscar Wilde

(via peep-toe-shoes)

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

“This wallpaper is killing me. One of us has to go.” — Oscar Wilde’s tomb

(via peep-toe-shoes)

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.

(via sunpistgrovestragickingdom)