He who floats with the current, who does not guide himself according to higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions-such a man is . . . a thing moved, instead of a living and moving being-an echo, not a voice. The man who has no inner-life is a slave of his surroundings as the barometer is the obedient servant of the air.

Before crime is committed conscience must be corrupted, and every bad man who succeeds in reaching a high point of wickedness begins with this.

Any landscape is a condition of the spirit.

Learn to limit yourself; to content yourself with some definite work; dare to be what you are and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not; and to believe in your own individuality.

Action is coarsened thought; thought becomes concrete, obscure, and unconscious.

Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.

Happiness does away with ugliness, and even makes the beauty of beauty.