A country without a memory is a country of madmen.

The irrational in the human has something about it altogether repulsive and terrible, as we see in the maniac, the miser, the drunkard or the ape.

Artists have no less talents than ever, their taste, their vision, their sentiment are often interesting; they are mighty in their independence and feeble only in their works.

Nothing can be meaner than the anxiety to live on, to live on anyhow and in any shape; a spirit with any honor is not willing to live except in its own way, and a spirit with any wisdom is not over-eager to live at all.

An artist may visit a museum but only a pedant can live there.

The living have never shown me how to live.

The little word is has its tragedies: it marries and identifies different things with the greatest innocence; and yet no two are ever identical, and if therein lies the charm of wedding them and calling them one, therein too lies the danger.