A school of art or of anything else is to be looked on as a single individual, who keeps talking to himself for a hundred years, and feels an extreme satisfaction with his own circle of favorite ideas, be they ever so silly.

Most pioneers are at the mercy of doubt at the beginning, whether of their worth, of their theories, or of the whole enigmatic field in which they labour.

The effects of good music are not just because it's new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.

The decline in literature indicates a decline in the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency.

If each one does their duty as an individual and if each one works in their own proper vocation, it will be right with the whole.

In all things, to serve from the lowest station upwards is necessary. To restrict yourself to a trade is best. For the narrow mind, whatever he attempts is still a trade; for the higher, an art; and the highest in doing one thing does all, or, to speak less paradoxically, in the one thing which he does rightly he sees the likeness of all that is done rightly.

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.