The summit charms us, the steps to it do not; with the heights before our eyes, we like to linger in the plain. It is only a part of art that can be taught; but the artist needs the whole. He who is only half instructed speaks much and is always wrong; who knows it wholly is content with acting and speaks seldom or late.

Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.

The most original of authors are not so because they advance what is new, but more because they know how to say something, as if it had never been said before.

The most difficult thing is what is thought to be the simplest; to really see the things which are before your eyes.

It is opposition that makes us productive.

Is this the destiny of man? Is he only happy before he has acquired his reason or after he has lost it?

The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.