For gold is tried in the fire and acceptable men in the furnace of adversity.

The effort of art is to keep what is interesting in existence, to recreate it in the eternal.

The world is a perpetual caricature of itself; at every moment it is the mockery and the contradiction of what it is pretending to be.

The profoundest affinities are those most readily felt, and though a thousand later considerations may overlay and override them, they remain a background and standard for all happiness. If we trace them out we succeed.

The truth properly means the sum of all true propositions, what omniscience would assert, the whole ideal system of qualities andrelations which the world has exemplified or will exemplify. The truth is all things seen under the form of eternity.

My soul hates the fool whose only passion is to live by rule.

Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.