I let everyone follow his own bent, that I may be free to follow mine.

If you are convinced of a matter, you must take sides or you don't deserve to succeed.

Time is a strange thing. It is a whimsical tyrant, which in every century has a different face for all that one says and does.

We amuse ourselves painting our prison-walls with bright figures and brilliant landscapes.

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."

Mere curiosity adds wings to every step.

Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them.