The true God, the mighty God, is the God of ideas.

What is a great life if not a youthful idea executed by a man of mature years.

The existence of the soldier, next to capital punishment, is the most grievous vestige of barbarism which survives among men.

Silence alone is great; all else is feebleness . . . Perform with all your heart your long and heavy task. . . . Then as do I, say naught, but suffer and die.

A calm despair, without angry convulsions or reproaches directed at heaven, is the essence of wisdom.

Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.

But it is the province of religion, of philosophy, of pure poetry only, to go beyond life, beyond time, into eternity.