We are born to action and whatever is capable of suggesting and guiding action has power over us from the first.

Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom.

If love closes, the self contracts and hardens: the mind having nothing else to occupy its attention and give it that change and renewal it requires, busies itself more and more with self-feeling, which takes on narrow and disgusting forms, like avarice, arrogance and fatuity.

Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also.

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

By recognizing a favorable opinion of yourself, and taking pleasure in it, you in a measure give yourself and your peace of mind into the keeping of another, of whose attitude you can never be certain. You have a new source of doubt and apprehension.

Failure sometimes enlarges the spirit. You have to fall back upon humanity and God.