June Avignone

“the moment that an artist takes notice of what other people want, and tries to supply the demand, he ceases to be an artist, and becomes a dull or an amusing craftsman, an honest or a dishonest tradesman. He has no further claim to be considered as an artist.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

“A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
― Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

“Men seemed to have shrunk in stature before the vastness of the mechanical contrivances they had invented. Michael Angelo, da Vinci, Aretino, Cellini; would the strong figures of men ever so dominate the world again? Today everything was congestion, the scurrying of crowds; men had become ant-like. Perhaps it was inevitable that the crowds should sink deeper and deeper in slavery. Whichever won, tyranny from above, or spontaneous organization from below, there could be no individuals. He”
― John Dos Passos, The Early Works of John Dos Passos (Unexpurgated Edition)

“Oh, he was a pretentious fool, making careers out of cocktails and meanwhile regretting, weakly and secretly, the collapse of an insufficient and wretched idealism. He had garnished his soul in the subtlest taste and now he longed for the old rubbish. He was empty, it seemed, empty as an old bottle —”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned