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“No deeply-rooted tendency was ever extirpated by adverse argument. Not having originally been founded on argument, it cannot be destroyed by logic.”

George Henry Lewes

Vol. 1, p. 7
The Foundations of a Creed (1874-5)

“Obedient to the primary impulse of adequate expression, the style of a complex subject should be complex; of a technical subject, technical; of an abstract subject, abstract; of a familiar subject, familiar; of a pictorial subject, picturesque.”

George Henry Lewes

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

“It is not by his faults, but by his excellences, that we measure a great man.”

George Henry Lewes

On Actors and the Art of Acting (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1875) p. 13

“The novelist with a prudent prodigality may employ descriptions, dialogues, and episodes, which would be fatal in a drama. Characters may be introduced and dismissed without having any important connection with the plot; it is enough if they serve the purpose of the chapter in which they appear. Although as a matter of fine art no character should have a place in a novel unless it form an integral element of the story, and no episode should be introduced unless it reflects some strong light on the characters or incidents, this is a critical demand which only fine artists think of satisfying, and only delicate tastes appreciate. For the mass of readers it is enough if they are mused; and indeed all readers, no matter how critical their taste, would rather be pleased by a transgression of the law than wearied by prescription. Delight condones offence. The only question for the writer is, whether the offence is so trivial as to be submerged in the delight. And he will do well to remember that the greater flexibility belonging to the novel by no means removes the novel from the laws which rule the drama.”

George Henry Lewes

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

“The first obligation of Simplicity is that of using the simplest means to secure the fullest effect. But although the mind instinctlvely rejects all needless complexity, we shall greatly err if we fail to recognise the fact, that what the mind recoils from is not the complexity, but the needlessness.”

George Henry Lewes

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

“Foolish critics often betray their ignorance by saying that a painter or a writer "only copies what he has seen, or puts down what he has known." They forget that no man imagines what he has not seen or known, and that it is in the selection of the characteristic details that the artistic power is manifested.”

George Henry Lewes

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

“The art of a great writer is seen in the perfect fitness of his expressions. He knows how to blend vividness with vagueness, knows where images are needed, and where by their vivacity they would be obstacles to the rapid appreciation of his thought.”

George Henry Lewes

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

“To some men popularity is always suspicious. Enjoying none themselves, they are prone to suspect the validity of those attainments which command it.”

George Henry Lewes

Source: The Spanish Drama (1846), Ch. 3

“A work is imaginative in virtue of the power of its images over our emotions; not in virtue of any rarity or surprisingness in the images themselves.”

George Henry Lewes

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

“The opinion of the majority is not lightly to be rejected; but neither is it to be carelessly echoed.”

George Henry Lewes

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

“Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.”

George Henry Lewes

Source: The Spanish Drama (1846), Ch. 2

“Simplicity of structure means organic unity, whether the organism be simple or complex; and hence in all times the emphasis which critics have laid upon Simplicity, though they have not unfrequently confounded it with narrowness of range.”

George Henry Lewes

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

“An energetic crudity, even a riotous absurdity, has more promise in it than a clever and elegant mediocrity, because it shows that the young man is speaking out of his own heart, and struggling to express himself in his own way rather than in the way he finds in other men's books. The early works of original writers are usually very bad; then succeeds a short interval of imitation in which the influence of some favourite author is distinctly traceable; but this does not last long, the native independence of the mind reasserts itself, and although perhaps academic and critical demands are somewhat disregarded, so that the original writer on account of his very originality receives but slight recognition from the authorities, nevertheless if there is any real power in the voice it soon makes itself felt in the world.”

George Henry Lewes

The Principles of Success in Literature (1865)

“The greatest artist is he who is greatest in the highest reaches of his art, even although he may lack the qualities necessary for the adequate execution of some minor details. It is not by his faults, but by his excellences, that we measure a great man. The strength of a beam is measured by its weakest part, of a man by his strongest..”

George Henry Lewes

On Actors and the Art of Acting (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1875) p. 13