If I venture to displace ... the microscopical speck of dust... on the point of my finger,... I have done a deed which shakes the Moon in her path, which causes the Sun to be no longer the Sun, and which alters forever the destiny of multitudinous myriads of stars.

The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of Artist

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

No thinking being lives who, at some luminous point of his life of thought, has not felt himself lost amid the surges of futile efforts at understanding, or believing, that anything exists greater than his own soul.

That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful.

The greater amount of truth is impulsively uttered; thus the greater amount is spoken, not written.

Scorching my seared heart with a pain, not hell shall make me fear again.