My soul is like this cloudy, flaming opal ring.

There is not a dream which may not come true, if we have the energy which makes, or chooses, our own fate.... It is only the dreams of those light sleepers who dream faintly that do not come true.

Vaguely conscious of that great suspense in which we live, we find our escape from its sterile, annihilating reality in many dreams, in religion, passion, art.

He knew that the whole mystery of beauty can never be comprehended by the crowd, and that while clearness is a virtue of style, perfect explicitness is not a necessary virtue.

A place has almost the shyness of a person, with strangers; and its secret is not to be surprised by a too direct interrogation.

What we ask of him is, that he should find out for us more than we can find out for ourselves... He must have the passion of a lover.

A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him.