Thought expands, but paralyzes; action animates, but narrows.

The man who acts never has any conscience; no one has any conscience but the man who thinks

Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular; but reason remains ever the property of an elect few.

A great artist... must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.

We are accustomed to see men deride what they do not understand, and snarl at the good and beautiful because it lies beyond their sympathies

Everything factual is, in a sense, theory. The blue of the sky exhibits the basic laws of chromatics. There is no sense in looking for something behind phenomena: they are theory.

Every man must form himself as a particular being, seeking, however, to attain that general idea of which all mankind are constituents.