Everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.

Our occasional madness is less wonderful than our occasional sanity.

It is a pleasant surprise to him (the pure mathematician) and an added problem if he finds that the arts can use his calculations, or that the senses can verify them, much as if a composer found that sailors could heave better when singing his songs.

A musical education is necessary for musical judgement. What most people relish is hardly music; it is rather a drowsy reverie relieved by nervous thrills.

Love is a brilliant illustration of a principle everywhere discoverable: namely, that human reason lives by turning the friction of material forces into the light of ideal goods.

Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.

The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas.