Where there is no love, a person's faithfulness to the marriage bond is probably against nature.

The general history of art and literature shows that the highest achievements of the human mind are, as a rule, not favourably received at first.

Style is the physiognomy of the mind. It is more infallible than that of the body. To imitate the style of another is said to be wearing a mask. However beautiful it may be, it is through its lifelessness insipid and intolerable, so that even the most ugly living face is more engaging.

The first forty years of our life give the text, the next thirty furnish the commentary upon it, which enables us rightly to understand the true meaning and connection of the text with its moral and its beauties.

If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?

You must treat a work of art like a great man: stand before it and wait patiently till it deigns to speak.

...this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky ways is-nothing.