You call me a misanthrope because I avoid society. You err; I love society. Yet in order not to hate people, I must avoid their company.

I am not so weak as to submit to the demands of the age when they go against my convictions. I spin a cocoon around myself; let others do the same. I shall leave it to time to show what will come of it: a brilliant butterfly or maggot.

I must stay alone and know that I am alone to contemplate and feel nature in full.

The divine is everywhere, even in a grain of sand; there I represented it in the reeds.

The pure, frank sentiments we hold in our hearts are the only truthful sources of art.

The eye and fantasy feel more attracted by nebulous distance than by that which is close and distinct in front of us.

Close your bodily eye, that you may see your picture first with the eye of the spirit. Then bring to light what you have seen in the darkness, that its effect may work back, from without to within.