The voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at all events to that kind of art to which my inquiry is directed. The course of events has given a direction to the genius of the time that threatens to remove it continually further from the ideal of art. For art has to leave reality, it has to raise itself bodily above necessity and neediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it requires its prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits and not by that of matter.

The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.

He who considers too much will perform little.

Disappointments are to the soul what a thunderstorm is to the air.

All things must; man is the only creature that wills.

Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays.

Futurity is impregnable to mortal ken: no prayer pierces through heaven's adamantine walls. Whether the birds fly right or left, whatever be the aspect of the stars, the book of nature is a maze, dreams are a lie, and every sign a falsehood.