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.

True art can only spring from the intimate linking of the serious and the playful.

One never goes further than when they do not know where they are going.

Beauty and Genius must be kept afar if one would avoid becoming their slave.

I could never have known so well how paltry men are, and how little they care for really high aims, if I had not tested them by my scientific researches. Thus I saw that most men only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.

The true poet is called to take in the splendor of the world and for that reason will always be inclined to praise rather than tofind fault.

One must be something to be able to do something.