Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.

Not to go to the theater is like making one's toilet without a mirror.

...a genuine work of art, can never be false, nor can it be discredited through the lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion but the thing itself.

Life to the great majority is only a constant struggle for mere existence, with the certainty of losing it at last.

Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see.

In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin.