One is never satisfied with a portrait of persons whom one knows. That is why I have always pitied portraitists. One demands so seldom of others the impossible, but demands just that of the portraitists.

What sort of God would it be, who only pushed from without.

Shakespeare is dangerous to young poets; they cannot but reproduce him, while they fancy that they produce themselves.

He who serves the public is a poor animal; he worries himself to death and no one thanks him for it.

Woe to him who would ascribe something like reason to Chance, and make a religion of surrendering to it.

Everyone believes in his youth that the world really began with him, and that all merely exists for his sake.

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.