"It is not extravagance, it is not excitement, it is not excess, or dizziness, or delirium, that chastises habitual pleasure in art, but only dullness. One of the Latin races, having the dullness and keeping wit enough to name it, has the word for it—banalité."

Alice Meynell Literature See all quotes by Alice Meynell →

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More by Alice Meynell

“I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.”

“To mount a hill is to lift with you something lighter and brighter than yourself or than any meaner burden. You lift the world, you raise the horizon; you give a signal for the distance to stand up.”

“Men in cities look upward not much more than animals, and these—except the dog when he bays the moon—look skyward not at all.”

“Compassion in the highest degree is the divinest form of religion.”

“If there is a look of human eyes that tells of perpetual loneliness, so there is also the familiar look that is the sign of perpetual crowds.”

“Childhood is but change made gay and visible.”

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Art1904–1997

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