The reason why research is like sculpting from memory is that in neither is there a concrete visible subject to copy directly. The subject - as sculptors themselves are fond of saying - is hidden in the block of material.

Intellect has nothing to do with equality except to respect it as a sublime convention.

Of course, clothing fashions have always been impractical, except in Tahiti.

no subject of study is more important than reading…all other intellectual powers depend on it.

The educated man had throughout the ages found a way to covert passionate activity into silent and motionless pleasure. He can sit still in a room and not perish.

It is always some illusion that creates disillusion, especially in the young, for whom the only alternative to perfection is cynicism.

Music, not being made up of objects nor referring to objects, is intangible and ineffable; it can only be as it were inhaled by the spirit: the rest is silence.