When we speak, in gestures or signs, we fashion a real object in the world; the gesture is seen, the words and the song are heard. The arts are simply a kind of writing, which, in one way or another, fixes words or gestures, and gives body to the invisible.

One must be truthful with oneself about one's own motives, especially if one is to survive in the world. It takes rigor, and it takes courage.

We prove what we want to prove, and the real difficulty is to know what we want to prove.

Man himself is an enigma in motion; his questions never stay asked; whereas the mold, the footprint, and by natural extension, the statue itself, like the vaults, the arches, the temples with which man records his own passing, remain immobile and fix a moment of man's life, upon which one might endlessly meditate.

If religion is only human, and its form is man's form, it follows that everything in religion is true.

There are only two kinds of scholars; those who love ideas and those who hate them.

Profound sadness is always the result of an unhealthy condition of the body. ... We [should] say, 'I am sad; everything looks black to me; but external events are in no way responsible. It's my body that insists on reasoning. These are the opinions of my stomach.'