The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.

A forbidden writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth, that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread it out.

Again men have been kept back as by a kind of enchantment from progress in science by reverence for antiquity, by the authority of men counted great in philosophy, and then by general consent.

Out of monuments, names, words proverbs ...and the like, we do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.

Great art is always a way of concentrating, reinventing what is called fact, what we know of our existence- a reconcentration… tearing away the veils, the attitudes people acquire of their time and earlier time. Really good artists tear down those veils

Virtue is like precious odours,-most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed.

O life! An age to the miserable, a moment to the happy.