He who moves not forward, goes backward.

The mind is found most acute and most uneasy in the morning. Uneasiness is, indeed, a species of sagacity - a passive sagacity. Fools are never uneasy.

What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.

It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery."

The modern age has a false sense of superiority, because of the great mass of data at its disposal. But the valid criterion of distinction is rather the extent to which man knows how to form and master the material at his command.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it's the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The Skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.