The most important thing in life is to see to it that you are never beaten.

One cannot create an art that speaks to men when one has nothing to say.

Since 1789 history has had a new perspective, revolution being a successful revolt, and revolt a revolution that has failed.

Genius is not perfected, it is deepened. It does not so much interpret the world as fertilize itself with it.

A break in the established order is never the work of chance. It is the outcome of a man's resolve to turn life to account.

Every creation is, at its root, the struggle between potential form and imitated form.

In the course of history, all empires have been created with premeditation, by an effort often sustained over several generations. Every power has been Roman to a degree. The United States is the first nation to become the most powerful in the world without having sought to be so. Its exceptional energy and organization have never been oriented toward conquest.