Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers must do service and all talents swear allegiance. In this great balance of utility, the spiritual service of art has no weight, and, deprived of all encouragement, it vanishes from the noisy Vanity Fair of our time.

But how is the artist to protect himself against the corruption of the age which besets him on all sides?

Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in the truth that is taught by life.

Think with awe on the slow and quiet power of time.

I speak with the Eternal through the instrument of nature, through the world's history: I read the soul of the artist in his Apollo.

An honest man you may form of windle-straws, but to make a rogue you must have grist.

A virtuous name is the precious only good, for which queens and peasants' wives must contest together.