Our dependence outweighs our independence, for we are independent only in our desire, while we are dependent on our health, on nature, on society, on everything in us and outside us.

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand; it is the cruelest trial reserved for self-devotion; it is what must have oftenest wrung the heart of the Son of man; and if God could suffer, it would be the wound we should be forever inflicting upon Him. He also - He above all - is the great misunderstood, the least comprehended.

Analysis kills spontaneity. The grain once ground into flour springs and germinates no more.

The ideal, after all, is true than the real: for the ideal is the eternal element in perishable things.

Composition is a process of combination, in which thought puts together complementary truths, and talent fuses into harmony the most contrary qualities of style. So that there is no composition without effort, without pain even, as in all bringing forth. The reward is the giving birth to something living--something, that is to say, which, by a kind of magic, makes a living unity out of such opposed attributes as orderliness and spontaneity, thought and imagination, solidity and charm.

Pure truth cannot be assimilated by the crowd; it must be communicated by contagion.

Sacrifice, which is the passion of great souls, has never been the law of societies.