Every life is a profession of faith, and exercises an inevitable and silent influence.

I have never felt any inward assurance of genius, or any presentiment of glory or of happiness. I have never seen myself in imagination great or famous, or even a husband, a father, an influential citizen. This indifference to the future, this absolute self-distrust, are, no doubt, to be taken as signs. What dreams I have are all vague and indefinite; I ought not to live, for I am now scarcely capable of living.

The art which is grand and yet simple is that which presupposes the greatest elevation both in artist and in public.

We are always making God our accomplice so that we may legalize our own inequities.

What we call little things are merely the causes of great 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.

A thousand things advance; nine hundred and ninety nine retreat; That is progress.