Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.

There is nothing more frightful than for a teacher to know only what his scholars are intended to know.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

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

Love and desire are the spirit's wings to great deeds.

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.