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

Music is a means of giving form to our inner feelings, without attaching them to events or objects in the world.

The Soul is the voice of the body's interests.

Happiness is impossible, and even inconceivable, to a mind without scope and without pause, a mind driven by craving, pleasure, or fear. To be happy, you must be reasonable, or you must be tamed. You must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world and what things in it can really serve you. To be happy, you must be wise.

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.

Popular poets are the parish priests of the Muse, retailing her ancient divinations to a long since converted public.

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