It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.

Whether one show one's self a man of genius in science or compose a song, the only point is, whether the thought, the discovery, the deed, is living and can live on.

Strike the dog dead, it's but a critic!

God help us -- for art is long, and life so short.

Assuredly there is no more lovely worship of God than that for which no image is required, but which springs up in our breast spontaneously when nature speaks to the soul, and the soul speaks to nature face to face.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.