We cannot feel strongly toward the totally unlike because it is unimaginable, unrealizable; nor yet toward the wholly like because it is stale - identity must always be dull company. The power of other natures over us lies in a stimulating difference which causes excitement and opens communication, in ideas similar to our own but not identical, in states of mind attainable but not actual.

A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.

Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture.

One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.

There is hardly any one so insignificant that he does not seem imposing to some one at some time.

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.

The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.