The fountain of love is the rose and the lily, the sun and the dove.

Nature, like a true poet, abhors abrupt transitions.

Genius: 1. to believe your own thought. To believe that what is true for you is ultimately true. 2. a sledgehammer. 3. the fruit of labour and thought. 4. soul. 5. the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. 6. something one can become.

The years keep coming and going, Men will arise & depart; Only one thing is immortal: The love that is in my heart.

I am no longer a divine biped. I am no longer the freest German after Goethe, as Ruge named me in healthier days. I am no longer the great hero No. 2, who was compared with the grape-crowned Dionysius, whilst my colleague No. 1 enjoyed the title of a Grand Ducal Weimarian Jupiter. I am no longer a joyous, somewhat corpulent Hellenist, laughing cheerfully down upon the melancholy Nazarenes. I am now a poor fatally-ill Jew, an emaciated picture of woe, an unhappy man.

He who fears to venture as far as his heart urges and his reason permits, is a coward; he who ventures further than he intended to go, is a slave.

Photography is a witness against the mistaken opinion that art is an imitation of nature.