I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze."

(Letter to Cynthia Asquith, November 1913)

It's a curious thing that the mental life seems to flourish with its roots in spite, ineffable and fathomless spite. Always has been so! Look at Socrates, in Plato, and his bunch round him! The sheer spite of it all, just sheer joy in pulling somebody else to bits...Protagoras, or whoever it was! And Alcibiades, and all the other little disciple dogs joining in the fray! I must say it makes one prefer Buddha, quietly sitting under a bo-tree, or Jesus, telling his disciples little Sunday stories, peacefully, and without any mental fireworks. No, there's something wrong with the mental life, radically. It's rooted in spite and envy, envy and spite. Ye shall know the tree by its fruit.

It is quite true, as some poets said, that the God who created man must have had a sinister sense of humor, creating him a reasonable being, yet forcing him to take this ridiculous posture, and driving him with blind craving for this ridiculous performance.

Then I’m tempted to die just to … spite him.”

“That’s the spirit that will win us the war.

... there is an ecstatic mechanism in birds that makes them fly upwards in spite of worms.

The true artist doesn't substitute immorality for morality. On the contrary, he always substitutes a finer morality for a grosser one.