The world is so ordered that we must, in a material sense, lose everything we have and love, one thing after another, until we ourselves close our eyes.

Better not be a hero than work oneself up into heroism by shouting lies.

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

There is a prodigious selfishness in dreams: they live perfectly deaf and invulnerable amid the cries of the real world.

There is no greater stupidity or meanness than to take uniformity for an ideal.

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.