226 Quotes by Harold Bloom

Shakespeare and his few peers invented all of us.

Pragmatically, aesthetic value can be recognized or experienced, but it cannot be conveyed to those who are incapable of grasping its sensations and perceptions. To quarrel on its behalf is always a blunder.

Nietzsche tended to equate the memorable with the painful.

We are destroying all esthetic standards in the name of social justice.

For Ibsen, gusto forgives almost everything.

Persuasion is a strong but subdued outrider.

A play that takes as its burden the meaning of self-consciousness may hint that inner freedom can be attained only when the protagonist can separate his genius for expanding consciousness from his own passion for theatricality.

The work of great poetry is to aid us to become free artists ourselves...The art of reading poetry is an authentic training in the augmentation of consciousness, perhaps the most authentic of healthy modes.

One breaks into the canon only by aesthetic strength.