Art is constitutive-the artist determines beauty. He does not take it over.

We are the slaves of objects around us, and appear little or important according as these contract or give us room to expand.

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.

Reason can never be popular. Passions and feelings may become popular, but reason will always remain the sole property of a few eminent individuals.

I have never looked at foreign countries or gone there but with the purpose of getting to know the general human qualities that are spread all over the earth in very different forms, and then to find these qualities again in my own country and to recognize and to further them.

I do not now begin, - I still adore Her whom I early cherish'd in my breast; Then once again with prudence dispossess'd, And to whose heart I'm driven back once more. The love of Petrarch, that all-glorious love, Was unrequited, and, alas, full sad.