Mankind? That is an abstraction. There have always been and always will be only individuals.

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting.

It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery."

Let us seek to fathom those things that are fathomable and reserve those things which are unfathomable for reverence in quietude.

One needs only to get old to become milder; I don't see anyone make a mistake I hadn't also made.

Out of moderation a pure happiness springs.

The eye doesn't see any shapes, it sees only what is differentiated through light and dark or through colors.