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.

All of us have life; few of us have an idea of it.

Everything is hard before it is easy.

Must it ever be thus-that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harrasses me.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

I believe in God and in nature and in the triumph of good over evil.

He who has art and science also has religion, but those who do not have them better have religion.