From love one can only escape at the price of life itself; and no lessening of sorrow is worth exile from that stream of all things human and divine.

The artist's business is to take sorrow when it comes. The depth and capacity of his reception is the measure of his art; and when he turns his back on his own suffering, he denies the very laws of his being and closes the door on everything that can ever make him great.

Words are the only arteries of thought our poor human body possesses.

Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.

The past is our treasure. Its works, whether we know them or not, flourish in our lives with whatever strength they had. From it we draw provision for our journey, the collected wisdom whose harvests are all ours to reap and carry with us, though we may never live again in the fields that grew them.

The symbol is greater than visible substance. . . . Unhappy the land that has no symbols, or that chooses their meaning without great care.

... it is a matter of civilizing everyone or not being civilized at all: the decay has always come from a partial civilization.