No matter what one says, you can recognize only those matters that are equal to you. Only rulers who possess extraordinary abilities will recognize and esteem properly extraordinary abilities in their subjects and servants.

He is the happiest man who can see the connection between the end and the beginning of life.

Art is in itself noble; that is why the artist has no fear of what is common. This, indeed, is already ennobled when he takes it up.

There are two things parents should give their children roots and wings. Roots to give them bearing and a sense of belonging, but also wings to help free them from constraints and prejudices and give them other ways to travel (or rather, to fly).

The day is committed to error and floundering; success and achievement are matters of long range.

The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.

The man who masters himself is delivered from the force that binds all creatures.