The little that is completed, vanishes from the sight of one who looks forward to what is still to do.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

Mysterious in the light of day, nature retains her veil, despite our clamours: That which she does not willingly display cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws and hammers.

No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as rarely as they do according to genuine motives, and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.

It is not enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must be itself a goal and a step likewise.

The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.

Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.