We are citizens of an age, as well as of a State; and if it is held to be unseemly, or even inadmissible, for a man to cut himself off from the customs and manners of the circle in which he lives, why should it be less of a duty, in the choice of his activity, to submit his decision to the needs and the taste of his century?

Man, one may say, was never in such a completely animal condition; but he has, on the other hand, never escaped from it.

It is play and only play that makes man complete.

No cause has he to say his doom is harsh, who's made the master of his destiny.

The painter is, as to the execution of his work, a mechanic; but as to his conception and spirit and design he is hardly below even the poet.

What reason, like the careful ant, draws laboriously together, the wind of accident sometimes collects in a moment.

It would be necessary that they should be already sages to love wisdom...