When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.

To be sure, we have inherited abilities, but our development we owe to thousands of influences coming from the world around us from which we appropriate what we can and what is suitable to us.

The thinking person has the strange characteristic to like to create a fantasy in the place of the unsolved problem, a fantasy that stays with the person even when the problem has been solved and truth made its appearance.

The best way to understand a painting is by drawing it.

We gladly put antiquity above our age but not posterity. Only a father doesn't begrudge his son's talent.

To live within limits. To want one thing. Or a few things very much and love them dearly. Cling to them, survey them from every angle. Become one with them - that is what makes the poet, the artist, the human being.

Doubt can only be removed by action.